


Plagg and the Butterfly Costume

by quicksilversquared



Series: It Was Only Meant To Be A One-Shot [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adventures in getting cheese, Gen, Identity Reveal, Lots and lots of cheese, ridiculous narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-03-11 09:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13521042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksilversquared/pseuds/quicksilversquared
Summary: Plagg is willing to do a lot in order to get more cheese. When he's spotted one too many times en route to the kitchen, he decides that a disguise is in order. One purple costume later, and Plagg is free to flit down to the kitchen without people thinking that he's a rat.And then he gets caught.





	1. Chapter 1

" _Eeeek! A rat!_ "

Plagg groaned and zipped into the wall as the shriek reached his ears. He could hear whatever Agreste staff member that had spotted him rattling around in the hallway, trying to figure out where he had gone. Plagg waited until they had finally given up and left before phasing back through the wall and continuing on his way down to the kitchen, still disgruntled.

Seriously, a _rat?_ They thought he was a _rat?_ He was a god, and gods shouldn't have to _sneak_ while heading to the kitchen for a bit of a snack! That wasn't even the first time someone in the household had made that mistake, either. Plagg had been spotted probably five times overall, including this time, and _every. single. time._ their first impression was _rat_.

It was truly unfair. If almost any of the _other_ kwami got spotted, people probably didn't think _rat_.

"Seriously, did you go out _again?_ " Adrien demanded as soon as Plagg got back to his room, after munching his way through several wedges of Brie in the kitchen. "I give you plenty of cheese! Someone is gonna get a proper look at you someday and put the pieces together, and then my father won't let me out of his sight ever again."

"I'll be more careful next time," Plagg grumbled as he settled into the bottom of the trash can that he had claimed as his own. "And there's no such thing as enough cheese."

Adrien just groaned and went back to his homework.

Still, Adrien's words did give Plagg something to think about. It _would_ be bad if Adrien's secret identity was discovered. His father had already noticed Adrien's ring once, and it would just take a few reports of a "mouse" in the hallways between Adrien's room and the kitchen for Mr. Agreste to put things together. If Mr. Agreste decided that it was too dangerous for Adrien to be fighting, then he might even try to take the ring away or keep Adrien from going out. But Plagg didn't want to give up his extra cheese snacks.

Plagg spent several days puzzling over the problem. The best idea he could think of was some sort of disguise, but he was 100% positive that a small bush shuffling through the hallways of the Agreste mansion would be about a million times more noticeable than one very small kwami zipping around in his quest for quality cheese.

He was stuck. And he stayed that way for several days, until Adrien went over to his pigtailed friend's house for a study session. After the last of the cheese bread that they had gotten for a snack was polished off (Plagg had gotten the wrong Chosen, obviously- _cheese bread?_ He was in _heaven_ ), Plagg wandered off. Adrien was studying with his friends in Marinette's living room, so Plagg headed upstairs to explore.

What he found was a disaster zone full of fabric scraps in all colors and a half- made quilt draped over the desk. Apparently Adrien's friend had been in the middle of raiding her fabric stash for more colors to use when everyone came over. Plagg poked through the piles of fabric curiously, rolling around on a particularly soft and fuzzy swatch before continuing. He'd never had a kitten that liked making things, really, so he had never been surrounded by so many scraps of fabric.

He had _definitely_ gotten the wrong chosen. Cheese bread and his own bed padded with little pillows and scraps of fabric and he would be in _heaven_.

After a few minutes, Plagg went back to burrowing through the piles of fabric, occasionally popping up to toss them in the air like confetti. He draped himself in a scrap of red silk and made faces in the mirror for a while, amusing himself by pretending that he was a vampire. Then he draped himself in blue knit and imitated Duusu for a few minutes. Impressions of Tikki, Wayazz, and Pollen soon followed, and then Plagg finished up with a rousing impersonation of Nooroo while he was wrapped in a scrap of purple fabric that matched the butterfly kwami's color perfectly.

Suddenly a burst of inspiration hit him and Plagg paused, paw still raised in the air mid-gesture. He glanced over at the mirror, then wrapped the fabric more securely around himself and posed a few times.

_Huh._

He had grumbled only a few days ago about how the other kwamis wouldn't get confused as rats if they were spotted. They just weren't the right color for that to happen. But if he was dressed up as Nooroo, then no one would think _rat_ , or _cat_. They would think _butterfly_ , and they would just smile and continue on with their day, because how would be bothered by a pretty little butterfly?

 _No one_ , that was who. And it wouldn't be at all suspicious, since it was spring now and there were all sorts of butterflies out and about, so Plagg could go to the kitchen as often as he wanted for extra cheese.

Excited, Plagg started gathering up fabric. There was the purple cotton that he was wrapped in, and then some mesh stuff that would probably work well for wings. Plagg stored away a length of thread and a needle with his cache, and then very, _very_ carefully smuggled the entire bundle downstairs before Adrien left. Once they were home, Plagg started his work.

It was harder than he thought it would be. He couldn't freehand draw himself onto the fabric so he could cut it out, so he had to resort to trying to trace his outline while laying down on the fabric itself. Once that was done, he had to cut it out (Adrien's scissors were _not_ designed for kwami paws) and then sew it together, all without Adrien noticing.

Plagg had thought that it would be easy. He had wondered how hard it could possibly be, just sticking a needle in and out of some fabric. The answer was _very hard_.

The thread knotted endlessly. The fabric shifted out of place while he was trying to sew. Some parts of his purple onesie were a bit too tight, while other parts were baggy. The hood for his head had to be made entirely separately from the rest of the outfit and _then_ attached so that it would fit around his head. The edges of the fabric frayed.

Plagg found himself frantically gluing some parts of the fabric so that they wouldn't fray and the seams would stay together. It wasn't pretty, maybe, but from a distance it probably would look fine.

Probably.

He copied the swirl on Nooroo's forehead with a purple marker that he swiped from Adrien, and then soaked the mesh in glue to make it stiff for the wings. Those got tacked on the back of the Nooroo onesie with a couple large, crooked stitches, and then Plagg was _done_.

Maybe his cheese-stealing suit wasn't perfect, but Plagg thought it looked amazing. He slipped it on (then had to tug a bit, because one of the legs was tight), pulled the hood over his head, and did a little twirl. His disguise squished his ears and his tail a bit, but if that was the price he had to pay to get cheese, then so be it. It wasn't _that_ annoying.

During the next several weeks, there were no yells about rats during any of Plagg's excursions. He had been at least glimpsed during one of them, though, and the only response was a confused "Huh?" from the cook that had spotted the brief glimpse of purple.

Plagg preened, proud of himself. Problem _solved_ , and he did it all by himself. He had earned all of that extra cheese that he got.

And then one day, everything went wrong.

 

* * *

 

 

Plagg had been cheerfully headed through a dim hallway towards the kitchens when he heard the muttering. At first, he ignored it. Adrien's father had had to go to the eye doctor that morning (apparently he had injured one of his eyes somehow), and whatever had happened during the appointment had put Mr. Agreste in an even more sour mood than usual. The muttering had been going on pretty much all day. It was background noise at this point.

Plagg paid more attention when the muttering suddenly cut off and then, after a pause, there was a sudden and _very_ close "Ah-ha! There you are!"

Then hands that were decidedly _not_ Adrien's grabbed Plagg out of the air. Plagg gasped and wriggled, but the hands only tightened around him.

"Stop _wriggling_ , Nooroo! I am your master and you will obey me!"

Plagg froze and then promptly went limp, curling in on himself to try to hide his face as his mind raced. The man who had caught him knew of Nooroo and had called himself Nooroo's master. That meant that he was Hawkmoth. For some reason, he had actually been tricked by the outfit Plagg had made. He wanted to look up, to see who Hawkmoth was so that Adrien and Ladybug could track him down and surprise him, but he didn't dare. He couldn't risk looking up and having Hawkmoth see his definitely-not-Nooroo face peering up through the purple hood.

"We have work to do. Perhaps I cannot see as well as normal, but that does not mean that I can't akumatize someone and defeat the heroes!" Hawkmoth continued, stuffing Plagg into his jacket (Plagg wrinkled his nose; Hawkmoth, it turned out, wore cologne. It stunk like a sewer, overpowering and musky and _seriously why did humans douse themselves in the disgusting stuff_ ). He started walking, headed away from the kitchens. Plagg briefly mourned the loss of his mid-afternoon snack before remembering that there were more important things going on at the moment. "And you- I told you to stay put when I left this morning when I left for the doctor's office! There will be _consequences_ for wandering off! I've wasted _hours_ looking for you, and now my eye hurts more than before and I have a migraine."

Plagg burrowed down into the jacket nervously. They were crossing the atrium now, and Hawkmoth wasn't bothering to sneak at all. Clearly he was comfortable being in the Agreste household and wasn't worried at all about being caught. On top of that, now that he thought about it, Hawkmoth wouldn't have any reason to be looking for Nooroo in the Agreste mansion unless Nooroo was likely to be there, and Nooroo was only likely to be there if Hawkmoth himself normally was.

This was bad. But maybe there was an explanation that _wasn't_ the one that Plagg was fearing.

There was the sound of a door opening and then clicking shut. Plagg tried to prick up his ears to get a better sense of where they were, but then remembered that his ears were pinned against his head by his outfit. A second later, it didn't matter since another voice spoke up, close enough for Plagg to hear clearly.

"How are you doing, sir?"

Hawkmoth snorted. "Awful. The doctor said that you were right and my cornea was scratched, and it could take weeks for it to get fully back to normal. Right now, it hurts and I can't see out of that eye, which meant that I couldn't put my contacts in the other eye so I can't see as well as normal out of _that_ eye either."

Plagg's eyes widened in understanding. Clearly he had (sort of) gotten lucky with when Hawkmoth spotted him. His problems with his eyes meant that he couldn't immediately see the differences between Nooroo and Plagg in his butterfly outfit, when he normally might have. The dim hallway that Plagg had been in when he was spotted probably had helped, too.

"And now I have a migraine," Hawkmoth continued. "I can't _possibly_ get any work done today, so I'm headed up. I might as well _try_ to make something out of the day."

"Do you want me to get you some medicine for your headache, sir?"

"I've already had some," Hawkmoth responded. "But I might need more later. Have something ready for when I return, Nathalie."

Plagg froze. _Nathalie? Oh no, oh no, oh no..._

There was an affirmation, and then Hawkmoth was walking again. He paused and reached out, and then the floor _moved_.

Plagg hastily muffled his squeak of surprise as the floor moved downwards. Hawkmoth stayed eerily straight and still as the floor kept moving, downwards and then sideways, and then up, up, _up._

This was _ridiculous_ , if nothing else. Ridiculous, excessive, overly _dramatic_ , absolutely _stupid_...

The section of floor slowed, then came to a stop. Hawkmoth stepped forward, and then reached into his jacket to yank Plagg out. Plagg hastily grabbed onto his hood to make sure it didn't slip. If he got discovered now...

He was in danger. He should have run while he had the chance, even if he would have gotten Nooroo in trouble because of it. But now that he was here, he just had to confirm who Hawkmoth was and then he could scram.

"All right," Hawkmoth- _Mr. Agreste_ , Plagg confirmed with a careful glance to the side, _oh crud_ \- said. He adjusted his tie, enough for Plagg to spot the Butterfly Miraculous hidden underneath it. "Nooroo, transform me!"

There was a squeak from a corner of the lair- because that was the only thing it could be- and then a blur of purple zipping towards a clearly befuddled Mr. Agreste. He squinted red, puffy eyes towards the sound, and Plagg took the distraction to zip towards the closed window as fast as he could. There was a little more resistance than normal as he phased through the window because of the butterfly outfit, but then Plagg was free. He took a moment to pause and catch his breath once he was free of the lair, and then he zipped downwards as fast as he could go while staying hidden. He burst into Adrien's room with a gasp and a cough, spiraling through the air to land with a small _thud_ on Adrien's couch.

_Adrien's father is Hawkmoth. Holy crud._

_I just discovered something actually useful. Holy. Crud_.

"Plagg, what were you doing?" Adrien asked, not even looking up from his homework. He looked so _normal_ , like his entire world wasn't about to be shifted on its axis. He glanced up, and caught sight of Plagg sprawled out on the back of the couch in his purple Nooroo outfit. "What are you _wearing?_ Where did you go?"

For a moment, Plagg considered lying. He knew full well how much Adrien loved his (stupid, evil, neglectful) father, and Plagg knew that his Chosen's heart would be broken if he knew that his father was actually Hawkmoth and had nearly gotten Adrien killed several times. But he _couldn't_ lie. It was far too dangerous for Adrien _not_ to know. If Mr. Agreste put things together and assumed that Plagg was Adrien's kwami and not just a random person's kwami sent in to scout things out, then Adrien was in serious danger.

So Plagg made a decision. They had to go talk to Master Fu and get some advice on how to keep Adrien safe when he shared a house with Hawkmoth.

"You remember where we went when I was sick?"

Adrien nodded, clearly puzzled.

"We need to go there. _Now_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be a one-shot. It was only ever meant to be a one-shot. I wrestled with it for AGES to try to keep it as a one-shot.
> 
> .....it's not a one-shot.
> 
> I still have a bit more editing to do on the rest of the story before I start posting on a more regular basis, but it's getting close! The main story itself will be all Plagg's POV, though I'll also have a companion story with POVs from other characters to fill in places where Plagg is asleep/transformed/elsewhere (and I will mention when there will be such chapters; also, I'll probably be treating the two stories as one in that I'll either update one OR the other but not both on the same day unless it's a really important chapter and I have the time). I'm just super-excited about this story because it's a lot of fun and it's really a lot more plot-driven than HTFAM.


	2. Chapter 2

For once, Plagg was deep in thought as he sat in Adrien's bag. His Chosen was half-running down the sidewalk towards Master Fu's place, apparently under the impression that Plagg was sick and in immediate need of care. Plagg hadn't bothered to correct him, since he _did_ need Adrien to actually move fast in case Hawkmoth came storming downstairs to find Adrien.

"Almost there, Plagg," Adrien huffed, rounding a corner. "We'll get you to the doctor soon, don't worry."

Oh, Plagg was worried, all right. But not about _that_.

How was he meant to lead into what he had discovered? He couldn't just fly in and announce that Mr. Agreste was Hawkmoth. Adrien would probably keel over in shock. Maybe if he introduced the idea in baby steps so Adrien could come to the conclusion by himself it would be less of a shock to Adrien. The only problem with _that_ idea was that Plagg wasn't terribly good at not being blunt.

...eh, he'd have Fu there to deal with the keeled-over Adrien if that happened. There wouldn't be any lasting damage. Probably.

"Okay, we're almost there," Adrien panted. He slowed, and then Plagg heard a door being opened. "Oh, wait- how am I supposed to explain about how you got in the costume- whatever that is? Hang on, let me get you out of that first-"

"It's a _butterfly,"_ Plagg grumbled, swatting away Adrien's fingers as they fumbled for him in the bag. "Couldn't you tell? And just knock already."

"It's rather...purple," Adrien offered, as though _that_ was any sort of explanation. "And crumpled."

...okay, _maybe_ Plagg could accept that as an excuse. If his wings were all squished up, then that _would_ take away the butterfly-ness of the outfit.

"And don't worry about telling the old man anything," Plagg continued once he heard Adrien knock on Fu's door. His ears (mercifully free of the suit) twitched, listening for sounds from within. Once he heard Wayzz's voice and he knew Fu wasn't with a customer, Plagg zipped out of Adrien's bag to perch on his shoulder. "I'll handle it."

Predictably, Adrien spluttered.

"What- wait, no, what are you _doing_ , how am I supposed to explain that you can _fly?_ " Adrien demanded. He let out a squeak as Fu opened the door and raised an eyebrow at the two of them. Plagg spotted Wayzz hiding in the old gramophone across the room, his head peering out of the horn. "Er- sir, uh, I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but my, uh, cat-"

"I've discovered something," Plagg announced, ignoring the further squeaking from Adrien. Honestly, it was as though the boy was part- _mouse_ instead of part-cat. "Something _big_."

"I see," Fu said, not looking particularly ruffled as he waved them in. Plagg scowled at the lack of surprise on his face. He was willing to bet that he would get that infuriating _neutral_ expression off of the old Chosen's face once he shared his discovery. "Come in, come in. I can't say that I was expecting you and Chat Noir, but I can have some tea ready fast enough."

Plagg made a face. _Bleh. Tea_. "I'll just have cheese. Do you have some Camembert?"

Fu sighed and shook his head- Plagg didn't know why, cheese was _much_ better than hot leaf water anyway- and headed back into the room to put the teapot on. Adrien stayed frozen in the doorway.

"Well, go on," Plagg hissed, shoving at Adrien's shoulder. "Go inside and close the door before anyone else comes in. It's rude to ignore an invitation for tea and cheese, you know that, right?"

"He knows I'm Chat Noir!" Adrien hissed back. "And you talked and he didn't question it, and- what is going _on?_ "

"He's the one who gave you your Miraculous," Plagg explained helpfully, figuring that it would be safe to tell Adrien now. "He's the Turtle. And come _on_ , I can smell Brie."

Adrien started haltingly across the room, so slowly that Plagg rolled his eyes and zipped off his shoulder towards the plate of cheese slices (a variety plate! Joy! Just what he needed after such a stressful afternoon) that Fu was putting down on the mat in the middle of the room. Wayzz joined him several seconds later, dragging with him a miniature tea set. He set it up on the low table, pouring two cups as though Plagg was actually going to drink hot leaf water.

 _Bleh_. The Turtle kwami had always had weird taste.

"Come and sit with us, Chat Noir," Fu invited, pouring a human-sized cup of tea for himself and Adrien. "What is it that you two have discovered?" Much to Plagg's irritation, he was looking primarily at Adrien.

 _Pffft_. As if his boy knew anything. He was too focused on Ladybug to go and do any scouting like Plagg himself (inadvertently) had.

Adrien looked positively bewildered. "I- I don't know. All I know if that Plagg showed up in that purple _thing_ and told me that we had to get over here fast. I thought he was sick again."

"Yes, I _did_ wonder about the purple...outfit." Fu peered down at Plagg. Plagg ignored him and focused on munching on a slice of cheddar. It was nicely aged, and rather good quality to boot. "It almost looks like Plagg was trying to dress up as Nooroo."

Plagg said nothing. He had just taken a giant mouthful of cheese, and he wasn't about to rush through it just to confirm Fu's theory. It wasn't as though they were short for time, after all.

"Who's Nooroo?" Adrien asked, clearly puzzled.

"The butterfly kwami," Fu told him, still keeping an eye on Plagg as he chewed. "The one that is currently being held hostage by Hawkmoth."

Adrien looked completely puzzled. "Why would Plagg want to look like Hawkmoth's kwami?"

"I'm sure that's what we're all wondering," Fu said, as though Plagg wasn't _right there_. "And I'm sure he'll explain once he's done with that mouthful."

Just to be spiteful, Plagg slowed down and made big, exaggerated chewing motions. He could tell that Fu wasn't taking him very seriously and that simply Would Not Do.

Fu, Adrien, and Wayzz all sighed in unison.

"I have discovered something," Plagg repeated once his cheese had been completely turned to mush and he finally had to swallow. "Apparently Hawkmoth can akumatize himself."

Wayzz and Fu both blinked, somewhat taken aback. Adrien's eyes grew wide, and then his expression turned absolutely horrified. "Oh. _Father?_ "

Well. Okay. Plagg hadn't been expecting Adrien to catch on _quite_ so fast. So much for easing him into the idea that his father - his only remaining family member- was the Big Bad of Paris.

"Er. Yes," Plagg confirmed. Adrien looked even more horrified at the confirmation, but at least he hadn't fainted or anything yet.

"You're positive?" Fu wanted to know. "As you know, a mistaken identity-"

"He knew Nooroo," Plagg snapped. "He took me up to his lair because he thought _I_ was Nooroo. He tried to transform with me. The Miraculous is under that ridiculous stripy thing he wears around his neck. Nooroo was sucked towards him when he tried to transform with me."

There was complete silence at that. After a moment, Wayzz broke it.

"That is...very good evidence," he managed. "And he actually thought that you were Nooroo? I mean, that outfit-"

"Is a work of art, I know," Plagg cut across with a sniff. "Thank you. And apparently there was something wrong with his eyes today. They were all puffy and red and squinty."

"Father scratched his cornea this morning," Adrien managed. From his slightly choked voice, Plagg could tell that he was doing his best not to cry. "And then he didn't have his contacts in still, probably, so everything would have been a little fuzzy, probably."

Fu just reached over to snag a tissue box off of a nearby counter and offered it to Adrien.

"That _is_ a very big discovery," he said after Adrien had blown his nose a few times. "And very important. Wayzz and I had discussed if it would be a possibility, but there was no way to know for sure. I don't suppose you know how he did it? Miraculous holders are meant to be immune to akumas."

Plagg only shrugged and took another bite of the cheddar slice. What, did he _look_ like some sort of eternal Fountain of Knowledge or something? How was he supposed to know?

"I suppose that in the big picture, the _how_ is not important," Fu decided. "It would be interesting, but not of immediate concern. We can always ask Nooroo about it once we recover him. And have you discovered anything else?"

Plagg's first instinct was to snap _no, do I look like Tikki or something? I don't_ _ **do**_ _discoveries_ , but he whacked down that instinct to actually think about it. _Had_ he discovered anything else? He had to think about it for his kid. If there was any information that he was missing that could help keep Adrien safe or help them take down Mr. Agreste sooner, then it was important.

He was expecting plenty of cheese for all of his efforts, though.

He thought, and thought, and thought, even putting down his cheese so he could focus better. Suddenly, Plagg remembered something. The book- the big, dusty book that Mr. Agreste had made such a fuss about when it went missing- had been strangely familiar, though Plagg hadn't stopped to think about it at the time. It had had Miraculous holders in it, he vaguely remembered, and that was why Adrien had been interested in it. It had vaguely tickled a memory at the time, but Plagg had never bothered to try to remember _why_ it was important.

He remembered now. Fu had mentioned it missing before, and it was an important book, somehow.

"There was a book!" Plagg told them, smug that he had discovered (and _remembered_ , even if it had taken a little prompting) something else that was important. Normally it was Tikki who figured stuff out, or maybe Wayazz, or... well, pretty much any other kwami except for him. "That old book with all of the Miraculous holders in it. Mr. Agreste has it in his safe, behind this weird gold painting of a woman."

"That's my mom, Plagg."

"Your mom is a painting?"

Adrien snorted, and Plagg hid his grin of pride from cheering his Chosen up, even if it was just a little bit and only momentarily.

"We had it for a bit, then it went missing, and then Mr. Agreste got it back again somehow," Plagg explained eagerly. "And it was written in some strange language. We could try to get it again somehow now that we know where it is! Isn't it important somehow?"

"That it is," Fu said, sounding somewhat amused for some reason. "And actually, Tikki and Ladybug dropped by a few weeks ago with the book."

Plagg and Adrien's jaws dropped in unison. " _What?_ "

Fu smiled at their expressions. "Yes, I was surprised as well, and even more surprised to hear where they had gotten it. Apparently Tikki happened to notice Chat Noir with the book, and so they were keeping a close eye on you. They then saw a girl- Lila, I believe her name was?- steal the book from you."

Adrien and Plagg still hadn't picked their jaws off of the ground. At this new news, though, Adrien spluttered.

" _Lila?_ When? How? I mean, I could tell that she was interested in it, but- I put it in my bag, I know I did!"

"From Ladybug's story, it sounds like Lila knocked over your bag and took the book then," Fu told him. "And then Ladybug followed her, since her kwami knew the book was important. She retrieved the book when Lila threw it in the trash."

...Plagg was strongly considering biting Lila the next time she showed up at school. Stealing his Chosen's things and then throwing them in the trash? Asshole move. On top of that, it had gotten Adrien in serious trouble because he hadn't been able to put the book back before his father noticed that it was missing.

"She brought the book to me after the fight with Volpina," Fu continued. "But after you got in trouble for the book's loss, she came back to retrieve it. We took pictures of a number of pages before she brought it back to your house." He picked up a tablet from a shelf nearby. A few swipes later, and he was showing the befuddled duo the pages he had taken pictures of. "I've been working on decoding it. Was there anything else nearby when you found it?"

Plagg thought about it while Fu distracted Adrien with the photos. He put a little more effort in it than he normally would- well, okay, a _lot_ more effort. He was a bit sore that Tikki had somehow beat his to his discovery of the Miraculous book- he had done all of the initial legwork! If it weren't for him, the book would still be sitting undiscovered behind that weird portrait. He was the one to get the safe open, the one to push the book (well, okay, accidentally knock it over) into Adrien's waiting hands, and the one to...well, okay, maybe that was all he had done, but it was important.

And now, with that accomplishment cruelly snatched away from his paws, he had to come up with something else.

What else _had_ he learned?

There had been an elevator floor sort of thing that took Mr. Agreste to his lair, which was on top of the house. Nathalie had been in the same room and he had definitely mentioned going up to his lair, though Plagg couldn't remember how specific he had been. Was it possible that Nathalie just knew that Mr. Agreste had a secret room but didn't know what it was for?

Unlikely, maybe, but possible. Plagg would try to get confirmation of that before mentioning it. Adrien would doubtless be upset by the idea of yet another adult in his house being evil.

There had been other stuff in the safe, hadn't there? He had ignored most of it, but he remembered some things.

"There was some stuff on Tibet in the safe," Plagg said, drawing Fu's attention to him. "Some receipts and brochures and things."

"There was a picture of my mom in there, too," Adrien said. He still sounded absolutely miserable. "Near the book. Just a little picture."

"And there were some scrolls, too," Plagg finished. "I didn't really look at them because they were musty and old. And I think that was it."

"There were some scrolls lost with the book," Wayzz piped up, tea completely forgotten. He looked excited. "They had more information on them about the powers of the Miraculous, and how they can be used. Some of them have information that didn't make it into the book, information about magic not entirely specific to the Miraculous and secrets of the temple."

"I have a few of them yet," Fu said. He slowly started getting up, clearly about to go fetch the scrolls. Adrien watched, interested. Plagg rolled his eyes and went back to inspecting the cheese plate. He would enjoy a nice Brie next, he decided. That would make up for having to suffer through long-winded explanations about ancient scrolls and deciphering the writing and blah blah blah blah _blah_.

"The scrolls and the book were lost at the same time that the butterfly and peacock Miraculous were lost," Wayazz told them as Fu dug through a cupboard. "We told Ladybug that, and that was why she had suspected Mr. Agreste prior to his akumatization. It's great that the magic on the book and scrolls protected them from the elements for so many years! We feared that the magic might wear out and the information stored in the scrolls and in the book might be lost. My Master and I have been making great headway into deciphering the book pages we took pictures of, using the knowledge from the scrolls and what my Master remembered from his training. It is a similar code in both, but the scrolls are older."

Plagg had stopped listening. He was frozen in place, cheeks bulging out. Something about that nagged at his mind for some reason-

 _Oh._ The peacock Miraculous.

There had been a peacock pin in Mr. Agreste's safe.

"He might have the Peacock Miraculous," Plagg blurted, choking down his mouthful. He mourned it briefly- it had been great cheese, meant to be savored and not hastily swallowed!- and then spoke up again. "There was a pin in the safe. I had forgotten about it. A peacock pin."

Fu turned sharply, scrolls forgotten. Wayzz froze mid-explanation. Plagg took a moment to gloat at their expressions- finally, a proper reaction!- before doing his best to settle his face into a non-smirky expression.

After all, Hawkmoth owning _two_ Miraculous wasn't exactly what one would call good news.

"Was it real?" Wayzz wanted to know right away. "Or was it a replica? Because he _does_ make jewelry. It's possible that the real one is hidden elsewhere."

Plagg paused. _Huh._ He hadn't thought about that, but who could have blamed him? He had thought that they were just rifling through Adrien's father's things, not through Hawkmoth's magic stash. "Err..."

"You didn't notice?" Wayzz's voice sounded absolutely incredulous, and he was giving Plagg a rather judging look. "If Duusuu was _right there_ , how could you not notice?"

"I was _busy-_ "

"You weren't paying attention, you mean."

"I wasn't expecting to stumble across the Peacock!" Plagg said indignantly. "I was expecting a nice, normal day, lots of cheese, and a few naps. Not a miraculous that's been missing for over a hundred years."

"Plagg has a point, Wayzz," Fu said, and Plagg smirked at the turtle. "If Plagg was not looking for the Miraculous, then it would be easy to confuse the Peacock with a decorative pin at a glance. Not all kwami are as sensitive to the auras of others as you are. But it is important for us to know if it _is_ the Miraculous and if so, then we will have to retrieve it. If Plagg can check-"

Plagg nodded. He wasn't going to let Tikki win discovery-of-the-fight this time around. Granted, he _had_ been the one to discover Hawkmoth's identity and that was pretty big, but it almost didn't count since they had suspected Mr. Agreste before because of the book. But if he could recover the Peacock Miraculous and some of the scrolls...

Bragging rights would be _his_.

"We will have to be careful going forward," Fu warned them as he returned with a scroll. "An unknown kwami in Hawkmoth's home will put him on edge. He may suspect Adrien is Chat Noir. We can't simply steal things out from under his nose."

"I got caught last time because there's cameras in my father's office," Adrien said. "So he saw me, but apparently kwamis don't show up on camera. Otherwise I _really_ would have been in trouble."

 _No kidding, kid_ , Plagg thought. _You don't say_.

Instead of saying anything, Plagg stuffed another slice of cheese in his mouth. Adrien probably didn't need sarcasm at the moment.

"I will try to have replicas made of the book and scrolls," Fu told them, pouring himself another cup of tea. "Not exact replicas, of course, but ones that look similar enough to pass at a glance, and with random nonsense on them. I will need to know how many there are, if Mr. Agreste has been able to read them at all, and if so, how much he knows. Once we know if the peacock pin is real, then I can have a copy of that made as well. In the meantime, we can brainstorm how the retrieval might go. Ladybug and Tikki might have some ideas."

Plagg scowled and stuffed more cheese in his mouth. He was _really_ going to have to up his investigation game if Fu was going to get Tikki involved soon. Tikki would probably try to have her Chosen hang out around the mansion so she could explore inside and figure out more than Plagg.

He had better get a whole bunch of cheese for all of the work he was going to have to put into this.

Several minutes later, they were packing up to head back to the mansion before anyone noticed that Adrien was missing. Plagg was pleased to note (though he'd never admit it) that Adrien was looking better, apparently over his shock enough to at least put on a face that wouldn't make anyone think that something was wrong. While Fu and Adrien talked, Plagg packed all of the leftover cheese Fu had left out into Adrien's bag.

After all, if he was going to be zipping around the mansion doing all sorts of detective work, he had to keep his energy up somehow. Besides, Plagg would appreciate the cheese more than either

Adrien headed back towards the mansion at a much more leisurely pace than he had left it, much to Plagg's delight. It gave him more time to savor the stash of cheese that he had gotten from the old turtle man, and besides, if Adrien had been jogging again, Plagg wouldn't have been able to eat. Getting back in the window he had climbed out of was a little more difficult than climbing out, if the grumbling from Adrien was any indication, and then they were back in his room.

"Well, _that_ was an interesting afternoon," Adrien said with a sigh, dumping his bag on his bed. Plagg squawked and tried to keep his cheese from getting smashed. "I gotta be more careful, apparently. I guess it's better that I find out now rather than later."

"Uh-huh," Plagg managed as he wriggled under a textbook to fetch a squished wedge of Gouda. "Probably a good idea."

"And you have to be more careful, too," Adrien told Plagg, rudely dragging him out from the bag by the seat of his Nooroo-suit. "If my father hadn't had an eye injury today and saw you, he wouldn't have been fooled for a second."

"I'll travel through the walls," Plagg promised with a scowl, wriggling loose. More than anything, he didn't want to do that. Traveling through the walls left a dusty sort of taste in his mouth, and then his cheese didn't taste as good. He started tugging off the Nooroo outfit and then tossed it to the side. He would have to hide it well so Mr. Agreste wouldn't find it. Maybe he could leave it in Adrien's locker at school. "I'm very good at sneaking when I need to be."

Adrien didn't look convinced.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, reviews are much appreciated! :)


	3. Chapter 3

After a quick nap (he deserved it, after all), Plagg cautiously headed for Mr. Agreste's office. He wasn't there, which was a little surprising. Nathalie was, though, so Plagg carefully skirted around the room (through the wall, which was _gross_ and dusty and musty and this was why he left the detective-ing to Tikki and Wayzz and the others). He ignored the safe for now- he could inspect it whenever- and instead dove through the floor to follow the passage from the floor-elevator down, over, and then up towards Hawkmoth's lair.

Hawkmoth's _occupied_ lair.

Plagg lurked in the shadows behind Hawkmoth, careful not to disturb any of the butterflies. Hawkmoth looked agitated and on edge, clutching his staff- or, rather, the thin sword that had apparently been hidden in the staff.

...okay, yeah, that would _definitely_ do some damage if that hit Ladybug or Chat Noir. Plagg made a mental note to mention it to Adrien. That would be a nasty surprise if it came into play in the middle of a fight.

"I would have thought that they would have attacked by now," Hawkmoth was muttering. "What, are they waiting to attack in the middle of the night or something? Because mark my words, I _will_ be ready no matter what! No one can get past my security!"

...okay, so it sounded like maybe Mr. Agreste was planning on really locking the place down at night. That could be a problem if the superheroes wanted to go out on patrol, since Adrien might find himself locked in or locked out. If there was an akuma attack, then Adrien might not be able to get out without triggering some alarms.

Well, if that was the case, then Plagg would have to be sure to _accidentally_ destroy some of the wiring controlling the metal shutters that snapped down over Adrien's bathroom windows. They could manage with just one small window open.

For the next few hours, Hawkmoth paced and fumed. He didn't seem particularly inclined to make any akumas, though why Plagg didn't know. After all, an akuma would be a distraction. It would draw the superheroes away from him, so he could stop stressing so much.

Plagg briefly wondered if it would be wrong of him to wish that his Chosen's father would keel over from stress. Mr. Agreste would deserve it.

Finally, Hawkmoth decided that no one was coming for him right away. He detransformed and stepped back onto a certain piece of floor. Before Plagg could fully focus on what was happening (he had been drowsing a little, so sue him), the floor was opening up and taking Mr. Agreste back the way he came.

Very efficient, very slick, very dramatic, very high tech, and, most importantly of all, very _mechanical._ One small broken piece and Mr. Agreste would get stranded halfway under the house. Plagg hadn't seen any doorways or exits of any sort leading off of the tunnel that the floor-elevator took, which meant that if something broke, Mr. Agreste would get stuck down there. He would no doubt call Nathalie, and she would have to step out of the office to find a suitable mechanic to fix the problem. If they needed to get into the office undetected, an elevator break-down would be an _excellent_ diversion tactic.

Plagg would thoroughly enjoy breaking Mr. Agreste's stupid toys.

After another glance around the lair- Plagg had been hoping that Mr. Agreste would leave Nooroo up here so he could talk to the captive kwami, but no such luck; he would have to try to corner the other kwami at night, once Mr. Agreste fell asleep- Plagg plunged back down through the house. He loitered in the office, making sure that Mr. Agreste wasn't going to move anything from the safe, and only once Mr. Agreste headed off to bed, complaining of another headache, did Plagg zip back to Adrien's side to moan for cheese.

His stomach had never been so empty! He had done so much legwork, and that deserved a reward, right?

"I requested a second portion of macaroni and cheese at dinner," Adrien told Plagg, pulling out a Tupperware container full of warm, gooey, cheesy goodness. "I claimed that I had been practicing basketball in my room all afternoon and it made me really hungry so I would get more. I thought you deserved it, for all of the discoveries you're making." He looked exhausted, even more so than he normally did at the end of the day. Plagg wondered if trying to pretend that everything was still okay was taking a toll on his Chosen.

...he was definitely not the right kwami for the emotional stuff.

"Did you learn anything?" Adrien asked. Then he froze and glanced around. "You don't think the room is bugged, do you?"

Plagg glanced around and sniffed at the air before doing a quick circuit of the room just to be sure. "Not bugged. I suppose we _should_ probably check on a regular basis until we can get Nooroo to feed your father some story as a diversion."

"What if he hears the story but doesn't believe it?" Adrien asked anxiously. The tension was clear on his face. Having to live in the same house as Hawkmoth was clearly starting to take a toll on him, even though he had only known for a few hours. "But then he tells Nooroo that he does, just to make us get our guard down?"

"He can't trick Nooroo, not when Nooroo is paying attention," Plagg told him. "He probably got tricked on your father's intentions initially, because he likes to see the best in everyone. He probably sensed the curiosity, because he was looking for it, and there were probably some other emotions too, I don't know-" Again, Plagg was _not_ the kwami to ask about emotions, they were annoying and cheese was much better- "but if he's looking for lies, or deception, then he'll find it if it's there." Plagg was of the opinion Nooroo could stand to be more cautious, but the other kwami would probably never listen.

Adrien looked marginally more relaxed. _Marginally_.

"I learned that I should probably destroy the shuttering mechanism on one of your bathroom windows," Plagg said, eying the macaroni until Adrien opened the contained and pushed it towards him. "And I probably should explore the other security stuff and see what else needs destroying so you can come and go freely." He gobbled up one noodle, humming happily at the cheesy sauce, and then refocused for a moment. "And Hawkmoth has a pretty dangerous weapon, so we should be careful about attacking him when transformed. I know where his little elevator tunnel goes, and I did happen to spot some good places where I could make it break if we need him out of the way and not akumatizing anyone for a bit."

Adrien looked alarmed at the information about the weapon. Plagg somewhat regretted mentioning it, but _someone_ had to remember to tell the old man about it and Plagg sure wasn't going to remember everything.

Also, Adrien was going to have to deal with Plagg talking with a full mouth because he couldn't keep himself from the mac 'n cheese any longer.

"I didn't get to look in the safe yet," Plagg mumbled a few seconds later around a mouthful of cheesy deliciousness. Man, if this was the reward he got for doing detective work, maybe he should do it more often. "I figured I would do it after Nathalie left, since you father already went to bed."

"And you'll count the number of scrolls and check the pin and see what else there is," Adrien said, either to remind Plagg or to remind himself of what they were trying to do. "How many scrolls there are, if there's anything else that we need to know about."

"Mm-hm," Plagg managed, his mouth stuffed full. "And then I come back and you take notes, and then I go to see if I can talk to Nooroo and see what all your father knows."

Adrien nodded. Plagg suspected that he would probably stay up until Plagg came back with news about what all his father knew. Plagg didn't blame him- Adrien probably didn't feel particularly safe with the thought that Hawkmoth might suspect who he was, especially when they lived in the same house. Hopefully Plagg would have some good news and Adrien would be able to stop worrying so much and get some sleep.

Or maybe Plagg would come back, gather his Chosen up, and hightail it back to Fu's house. It depended entirely on what Plagg discovered.

After the macaroni and cheese was thoroughly polished off, the container licked clean and he had washed the meal down with a lovely creamy piece of Camembert, Plagg felt energetic enough to venture out again. He took the time to disarm the security stuff around one of Adrien's bathroom windows so they would have an escape route, and then he dashed through the mostly-dark house towards Mr. Agreste's office. Nathalie was only just heading out, leaving the office dark and empty.

 _Perfect_.

Plagg proceeded cautiously, making certain that he was alone. His eyes scanned the room, looking for shapes that weren't supposed to be there, but he found nothing.

He was free to explore.

Without even pausing, Plagg dove through the portrait and into the safe. He paused to let his eyes shift. If he were a normal cat, he would need a _little_ light to see. But since he was a cat _god_ , he wasn't particularly bound by such earthly rules.

Maybe his vision was a little greener than normal, but he _could_ see details on the things around him just fine.

The scent of magic and power (and dust) hung heavy in the air, not anywhere near as nice-smelling as cheese. Plagg first made his way down to the middle shelf, the one that had held the book and the peacock pin. The pin looked really, _really_ strange with his green-tinted vision, but that didn't matter.

Plagg held his paws out and placed them against the pin. The rush of magic he felt was overwhelming.

 _Yup. That's definitely the Peacock, all right_.

Well, at least they knew where it was so they could recover it. As long as Adrien's father didn't completely freak out and try to rearrange all of the things he hid, they could just come in and take it once they got all of the persnickety details about hiding their tracks figured out.

Plagg glanced over the stuff about Tibet again (it wasn't magical) and then headed up a shelf. There were a few scrolls there and a stray book or two. Plagg flipped through the book and found design illustrations of the akuma next to what had to be redesigns, with notes in the margins about what improvements he should have made. There were a few with just the original drawing of the akuma, with the words "COMPLETELY USELESS" scrawled in a heavy hand next to them.

Plagg sniggered.

He flipped through another sketchbook and found it mostly blank. Some of the pages had scribbled ideas about emotions Mr. Agreste wanted to look for and target in the future, along with the powers he would want to use. Interesting, probably good information for Ladybug and Chat Noir to know in case those kinds of akumas ever _did_ pop up, but ultimately too much for Plagg to keep track of.

So he headed down to the bottom shelf.

 _This_ shelf had a lot more stuff. There was a whole pile of scrolls and notebooks. It would be pretty fast to count the scrolls, which was most important, but it would take _forever_ to look through the books properly and make sure that there wasn't stuff copied (and potentially attempts at translation made) from the books and the scrolls. Plagg wasn't certain what Fu would do if Mr. Agreste _did_ have stuff like that, but that wasn't exactly his problem.

Overall, Plagg counted fourteen scrolls. They all had the same writing style, he discovered, and he couldn't see any drawings on them, which was good. Mr. Agreste would notice for certain if drawings randomly rearranged themselves or disappeared on his scrolls. He peered through the first book on the pile and saw a whole lot of notes, written in a _very_ cramped hand.

He had _better_ get a whole lot of cheese for this. Plagg wasn't _meant_ to be a detective. He _hated_ reading.

Scowling, Plagg started scanning the page. There were some mentions of the Miraculous, but most of the scribbling was notes about some Tibetan monk temple in the middle of the mountains. There were all sorts of notes about the myths about the location and what had happened there, some of which contradicted each other.

Plagg squinted. Huh, some of that stuff was sounding strangely familiar. There was a drawing of the place described in the myths- just a sketch, really- and it was ticking at some old memories-

Oh, right. It was the training center for young people- boys, mostly, if Plagg's memory was serving him correctly- who wanted to become Miraculous holders. Dozens were trained, and only a few were chosen. It was the most structured the Miraculous distribution had ever gotten, and the kwamis had all hated it. They were missing plenty of suitable holders in the general population, it had been annoyingly focused on research of the Miraculous instead of do-gooding, and the temple's trainees had been _ridiculously_ skewed towards boys. It had been doomed to fail, really, and Fu's mistake that had led to the training center being destroyed had been a long time in the making.

So Adrien's father had been trying to find it, then. That was... good to know, Plagg guessed. It was probably old news, since Mr. Agreste had already found the Miraculous and the scrolls and book and everything. But maybe the pages would include information on _why_ Mr. Agreste had been trying to find the temple in the first place. That could probably be important.

Deciding that that was quite enough information for one night, Plagg pushed everything back into place and zipped back out of the safe. Keeping low to the ground, he skirted back to Adrien's room to tell Adrien what he had found and to get some more cheese. He arrived to see Adrien diligently pretending to work on his homework, the windows behind him shuttered.

Apparently Mr. Agreste could trigger the home defense system remotely without being in his office. Either that, or Nathalie had been ordered to initiate the lockdown despite the absence of an obvious immediate threat.

"The peacock is real," Plagg reported once Adrien looked up. "And there's fourteen scrolls. There's some sketchbooks in there, too, but the ones on the top shelf are just a record of all of the akuma and their powers. The ones on the bottom I only glanced through, since there were a lot, but they seem to be journals. I'll need to go back sometime to read them, I guess. I just glanced at them, but they seemed to be from before your father went to Tibet. Can I have some Camembert?"

"From before my father _and_ my mother went to Tibet, you mean," Adrien corrected. He reached under his desk and opened the mini-fridge he had stashed there, pulling out a few slices of Camembert and handing them over to Plagg. Plagg pounced greedily. "So fourteen scrolls, you said? Master Fu should probably make a couple extra just in case my father had some out."

Plagg barely heard, too busy savoring the delicious creamy Camembert. Adrien had been generous with his slices this time around.

"It's probably going to take a while for Master Fu and Wayzz to get all of those replicas made," Adrien fretted. He glanced at a bit of wall- probably actually in the direction of his father's office, if Plagg thought about it- and looked anxious. "Weeks, probably."

Plagg yawned- he _had_ been working pretty hard, after all- and nibbled on the cheese some more. This whole deal was going to mess his sleeping schedule up _so_ much. He was probably going to turn into a nocturnal kwami, and that was always _so_ boring. It was _hard_ to get in proper naps when Adrien was running all over the place with classes and photoshoots and seeing his friends.

"So are you going to go see Nooroo soon?" Adrien asked anxiously. "I just- I mean, I _should_ get ready for bed soon, probably, but there's no way I can sleep if- if-"

He didn't need to finish. If his father was waiting for Adrien to let his guard down, then that would not be great, probably.

...darn it. Plagg _was_ going to have to become a nocturnal kwami, wasn't he? He'd have to sit up all night like some sort of guard kitten and make sure that no one came into the room, even if Adrien _had_ locked his doors.

 _Ugh._ Messing up his sleep schedule like that always gave him indigestion.

"I gotta get my energy back up first," Plagg informed Adrien. "And I need to be _positive_ that your father is asleep. The last thing we need is for me to get spotted again."

Adrien looked morose.

After another half-hour, Plagg zipped out of Adrien's room again. He had to pause in the atrium area- where exactly was Mr. Agreste's bedroom? He had definitely never been there before- before he caught a trace of Nooroo's magic aura.

...okay, it was _possible_ that he should have maybe detected that before. The entire _house_ smelled of butterfly. _Ugh._

Following the trail, Plagg sniffed his way up to Mr. Agreste's room. He paused as soon as he got inside.

If Plagg had thought that the security on the rest of the house was ridiculous...well, he hadn't _actually_ seen ridiculous until now. An iron plate had slammed down over the door as well as over the windows, and if Plagg _really_ focused, he could tell that there were laser beam motion detectors crisscrossing in front of the windows.

...actually, that was pretty stupid. If Mr. Agreste was in the room and somehow missed hearing the sound of superheroes banging against the metal shutters, then how would he catch the sound of an alarm? And what good would it even do him to have an alarm to tell him _after_ intruders had broken in?

Weird. Weird, weird, weird.

Mr. Agreste was definitely asleep in bed. He looked completely conked out, unlike the purple kwami perched on the bedside table next to him. Nooroo perked up when he saw Plagg, and then zipped towards him. Before Plagg could say anything, Nooroo was pushing him through the wall out into the hallway.

"I don't want him to wake up and overhear us," Nooroo whispered once they were in the hallway. "I already did some damage control, and I don't want that ruined."

"What does he know?" Plagg wanted to know right away. "How much did he see?"

"He saw a flash of green," Nooroo told him, and Plagg winced. "He figured it had to be either the cat or the turtle kwami, and I told him- well, I told him that there was no way it was you, because you're too lazy-"

"I'm _what?_ " Plagg demanded, only _just_ remembering to keep his voice down. "I am _not_!"

Nooroo fixed him with a _look_. "You normally aren't the type to explore, unless it is in search of cheese. And don't complain, my Master bought it! But I had to tell him that there's a Guardian that hands out the Miraculous and that he's the turtle and it would make sense for him to send his kwami out as a scout, because he was suspecting Adrien and that was the only way to throw him off."

Plagg almost pouted, then realized that Nooroo had a point. Wayzz and Fu _were_ the type to go poking around. Plagg preferred to leave that kind of work to his Chosens.

"However, he _is_ still suspicious of Adrien," Nooroo told Plagg, and Plagg cringed. That was not good news. "He saw Adrien's ring right after he saw Chat Noir's ring close up after one of the attacks. The magic interfered, so he isn't _positive_ that the ring shape is right, but if he checks again and it matches..."

Plagg scowled. He _could_ change the shape of the Miraculous (and he had before, so it would blend in better with the times), but it was always _so. much. work._ and it took a _ton_ of energy. And he would just be changing it a little, and then what about when the superhero duo next turned up on TV? Mr. Agreste probably followed that, and he would keep a close eye on the Miraculous and note any changes.

He and Adrien would have to go talk to Fu again right away, apparently. The old man would have to think of some solution.

"He's getting close to cracking the code on the book, I think," Nooroo whispered. " _Too_ close. And if he does, he could access new powers! Even with the magic fighting against him, that would be _awful_."

"We're planning to replicate the book and the scrolls and replace them with similar-looking fakes," Plagg told Nooroo, smirking a little. It wasn't often that _he_ was the one who knew the Plan. Of course, that was usually because he wasn't paying attention while plans were being discussed because there was cheese nearby and plans were for his holder to pay attention to and remember, but those were minor details. "And the fakes would have letters scrambled around or altered to make nonsense."

Much to his surprise, Nooroo's eyes grew wide in alarm. "You can't! I mean, it would get the real things to you guys, maybe, but my master rarely looks at those anymore. He has everything scanned into his computer and he does all of his deciphering work on there."

...okay, _that_ would probably be harder to deal with.

"I could tell you the password to that account," Nooroo told Plagg. "He has it under a different- a different _user_ , I believe it's called, all separate from his design stuff. But how would you make practically identical files and switch them out really fast? And the office is really guarded- either Nathalie or Mr. Agreste is always in there, practically, and once they leave for the night or for a long time during the day there's a motion detector set up."

...somehow Plagg had missed that. It wouldn't pick up _him_ , of course, but if Nathalie turned the system on when she got called away during their diversion, that could destroy their whole plan.

"I need you to tell me _everything_ you know," Plagg told Nooroo, frowning. " _Everything_."

 

* * *

 

 

Adrien looked relieved when Plagg popped back into his room.

"Well, your father thinks that it was Wayzz that he spotted, not me," Plagg reported immediately, diving for the cheese Adrien had set out. He had been extra-generous with the amounts, Plagg could tell. He decided not to tell Adrien that he had actually made a detour to the kitchen on the way back to see if he could sniff out a little more of that divine macaroni and cheese. He had found it all packaged up and cold in the fridge, so he had contented himself with some slices of Swiss instead. "But he _has_ noticed your ring's similarity to Chat No- _what did you do to the Miraculous?"_

Because the ring that Adrien had been fiddling with was _not_ the Miraculous. It was a similar size, maybe, but the face shape was different. It was more square, and the prongs were flatter.

"It's from Master Fu," Adrien told Plagg, grinning. "He thought that since my father had seen the shape of the Miraculous up close, that I should wear my ring tucked inside my shirt on a cord around my neck when I'm around my father or during photoshoots and wear this instead. Then he might see this ring and see that the shape is different, and then decide that he mis-saw the ring before and that I'm not Chat Noir."

...that was annoyingly smart. But hey, at least that left one fewer problem for Plagg to remember that they had to solve.

"Thankfully between my loose shirts and my jacket the Miraculous doesn't leave a lump," Adrien said, glancing down at himself. "But I'll have to do something else during photoshoots, because Father or the photographer _will_ notice if there's even the tiniest bump in my shirt. Maybe I can just turn the necklace around and have the ring hanging down my back or something. I just tried seeing if I could wear it as a toe ring or something, but it dug in a lot and hurt."

"Or I could watch the ring for a bit," Plagg said with a yawn. "For a little extra cheese, of course. I normally nap during your photoshoots and I won't be able to if I'm watching the ring, so I require extra compensation. And no putting my ring on your smelly feet, or you'll make me sick."

Adrien nodded.

"Nooroo said that your father had been looking at your photos from the shoots to try to figure out when you started wearing the ring, but there's no clear shots of the face of the Miraculous at all and the ring doesn't even appear in any shots until nearly a month and a half after the first akuma appeared," Plagg reported. Nooroo had been a veritable _spring_ of information. Clearly he paid more attention to his surroundings than Plagg did, probably because he didn't have much else to do. "So he doesn't have an exact timeline of when you got the ring."

"Thank goodness for pockets in fall fashion," Adrien sighed, looking relieved. "The photographer always has me put my hands in the pockets for those shots. And I didn't have as many shoots as usual right after I started school, though that probably had less to do with my schoolwork and more to do with him being more busy since he was just starting to terrorize the city. But a month and a half in? I can work with that. I can come up with a story."

"And Nooroo had a bunch of other information," Plagg told him. "Get your pencil out. I wanna tell you everything before I forget it, and then I want some cheese and I want to sleep. It's been a _really_ long day."

 

* * *

 

 

Against all odds, Adrien slept through the night. Plagg stayed up at first, before deciding that Adrien's father wouldn't be trying to come for the ring tonight. Even if he did, the doors to Adrien's room and the one uncovered window were both locked, and the noise it would make to open either would wake up either Adrien or Plagg.

Even though he had slept for most of the night, Plagg was still dragging the next morning. Adrien had clearly noticed, and was plying Plagg with cheese. He was enjoying some cheesy scrambled eggs when they heard Mr. Agreste's voice. Adrien straightened, but it was hardly an unusual response. Plagg had heard Mr. Agreste scold his son for his posture enough to figure out where the reflexive response came from.

"Father," Adrien said, sounding impressively normal. "Is your eye any better today?"

"Moderately. The doctor said that it could take several weeks for it to stop hurting, though."

Plagg yawned and tuned out the conversation. It was just boring chit-chat, maybe more than father and son normally exchanged but also nothing important. His time would be better spent enjoying the cheesy eggs.

He was so focused on the eggs that Plagg almost missed Mr. Agreste's comment about Adrien's ring.

"Nino gave it to me for my birthday," Adrien lied easily, so smoothly that Plagg briefly wondered if his Chosen had ever seriously considered going into acting. "He thought that I might like it. It _does_ give me something to fiddle with while I'm thinking in class so I don't accidentally disturb anyone."

"I see. May I look?"

Plagg peered carefully out of the bag, keeping himself hidden and his eyes narrowed as he watched Adrien slip the decoy ring off of his finger without hesitation so his father could look at it. It was a good quality ring, Plagg had noticed the previous night, actually metal like the Miraculous and not easy to damage at all. Even so, it probably _would_ be within Adrien's friend's budget range easily enough. Mr. Agreste took the ring and inspected it, and Plagg watched with great satisfaction as something in Mr. Agreste's face fell. He did a good job of hiding it, of course- that cold, emotionless mask only _slightly_ budged- but clearly he could tell that the ring was not the Cat Miraculous. He handed the ring back to Adrien, who slipped it back on.

"That was quite thoughtful of your friend," he said. "And quite tasteful. Impressive, considering that he goes around calling adults _'dude'_."

Big words, coming from someone who threw temper tantrums whenever an akuma fight didn't go his way. Plagg had heard all _sorts_ of stories from Nooroo. It was very tempting to share some of those stories with Adrien, just to try to cheer him up a bit.

"Well, I must be off," Mr. Agreste said after a short pause. "I'm quite behind on my work since I had to take yesterday off. Don't forget that you have an extra fencing lesson this afternoon."

"Of course, Father."

"I think that went well," Adrien murmured after his father had left. "I could see that he was surprised that I gave him the ring so easily. And he definitely saw that the face was different than, y'know..."

"Right." Plagg peered at the door, listening as Mr. Agreste's footsteps as he walked into his office and he stopped. "You might want to ask Nino to lie about the ring in case your father asks, though. Just to be safe. And, uh- do you have any more of those eggs? Or any extra cheese to put on them?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Plagg. So much fun to write.
> 
> I think I mentioned that there's going to be a companion story to PatBC with non-Plagg POVs, and that is next on my update schedule. It'll be Mr. Agreste's POV of the last three chapters.
> 
> As always, reviews make my day! :)


	4. Chapter 4

To say that the old man and Wayzz were blown away by the amount of information Plagg had gathered in one day- or, to be more accurate, in one evening- would be an understatement. They sat there with wide eyes as they listened to Plagg and Adrien report.

Or, well, _Adrien_ reported. Plagg was too busy sampling the cheese plate Fu had made for him to add in. Besides, Adrien had scribbled down pretty much every last detail that Plagg had relayed the previous night. He didn't really have much more to add.

"There were notes on how to find our training temple?" Fu asked in surprise. "I mean, that explains how he found it, but I didn't know that there were accurate enough legends still floating around for anyone to actually be able to _find_ it."

"Or what was left of it," Plagg couldn't help but interject helpfully, speaking around a mouthful of Gouda.

"I will be interested in seeing those journals once Hawkmoth is defeated and we can recover them," Fu said, ignoring Plagg as he poured more tea for Adrien. "I would like to go and see if there is anything else left at all to recover. Paintings, journals from the old masters, anything at all. There was a whole lot of research and experimenting done during the period that the temple was active."

Plagg made a face. He remembered that. He had been questioned for hours and days and _weeks_ on end as scholars crowded around him and tried to figure out the full extent of his powers. There had been a whole lot of bitten fingers and broken quills and smashed ink pots by the time they finally let him go.

"Did you read much?" Wayzz wanted to know. "What did it say?"

Plagg shrugged and swallowed. "I scanned. And some of the handwriting was really cramped, I couldn't read all of it."

"Your father must have done quite a few trips to Tibet to gather enough information to actually find our temple," Fu told Adrien. "It was quite hidden in the mountains."

"Both of my parents went to Tibet really often," Adrien said, reaching for a cookie on the plate Fu offered. "That's where they went for their honeymoon, they told me, and they really liked returning for trips. My mother vanished during their last trip in Tibet."

"Really?" Plagg asked, interested. _That_ was an interesting place to go missing. "You've never mentioned that before!"

Adrien gave Plagg a _look_ , though Plagg wasn't sure why. "I did so! I mentioned it right after you came back from the safe last night!"

Plagg thought about it. All he remembered was that lovely creamy mac 'n cheese he had had before he broke into the safe, and then that perfectly aged Camembert that he had gotten upon return. He had probably just assumed that Adrien had been talking to himself.

"I think it would be a good idea for you to see what else is in those journals," Fu told Plagg. "And look through the folder and see what is in there. I know Nooroo told you that all of the deciphering work was done on the computer, but we want to be sure that there aren't any printouts or assorted scribbling elsewhere. I was pleasantly surprised today at the amount of information you got, and now we just need to keep that up, if you can."

Plagg preened at the praise. Who said that he couldn't be attentive to detail? It just took the right incentive- lots and lots of cheese.

(And keeping his Chosen safe was a pretty good incentive too, but Plagg couldn't tell anyone that. He had a reputation to keep, after all.)

"I've been working on making replica book pages and contacting a book binder for the cover, and once that's done I'll work on the scrolls," Fu continued. "It will still take a bit, of course, but I am pleased by that progress. The replacement book will be slightly thinner than the original since Ladybug and I didn't take pictures of all of the pages, but it will be close enough."

"I would also suggest making certain that you know about all of the security measures in the office and any on the computer itself," Wayzz said. "And I would also look into seeing what security exists for the lair itself. I wouldn't be surprised if it is heavily protected."

"Ladybug will be visiting me tomorrow afternoon, and I will bring her up to speed then," Fu told them. "She's been coming weekly since she found the book to learn about some of the lore- and to bring an old man some fresh treats, of course. I had asked her not to tell you about me until the time came, so I'm sure she'll be pleased to hear that the two of you can discuss what she's been learning at our meetings. She was rather frustrated to hear that I should be kept secret until I gave her permission."

Plagg didn't even have to look to know that there was a lovesick grin spreading across Adrien's face at that. In fact, he wasn't _going_ to look, because then he would just lose his appetite.

"Once we have more information, then we can start having meetings with all of us present," Fu continued, and again Plagg didn't even need to look to know that Adrien had perked up. "You and Ladybug will have to stay hidden from each other behind screens and you'll have to communicate via your kwamis so you don't accidentally recognize each other by your voices, but having to keep relaying messages back and forth and discussing the same information over and over is not terribly efficient."

Plagg made a face. That sounded like a lot of _work_ and not a lot of eating cheese for him. Maybe Fu would make him a cheese bag to go.

"Besides, it will be easier for us to catch things and brainstorm together if we all hear things firsthand," Wayzz added. He certainly seemed on board with the plan, probably because he wouldn't have to act as a mouthpiece for Fu. Plagg wondered if he could maybe persuade Wayzz to talk for Adrien, especially considering the fact that if Ladybug was present, then she would probably have stuff from her parents' bakery, and she might even have cheese bread.

And if there was cheese bread, then Plagg wanted some before it started going cold.

"Unless something comes up, I will see you the day after tomorrow, then," Fu told Adrien and Plagg. Plagg caught the old master frowning at him as he discreetly started gathering up the leftover cheese slices, but he chose to ignore it.

After all, Plagg was going to be doing even _more_ work tonight at the old man's request. He was going to need more energy, and that meant more cheese. _Obviously_.

"I have fencing after school tomorrow," Adrien told Fu. "But I could probably sneak out after dinner, at eight or so?"

"That should work well," Fu said with a smile. "Now, unless an old man's ears mistake him, it would appear that there's an akuma out and about, so I should let you go. I will see you Friday at eight."

 

* * *

 

Adrien was unusually quiet after the akuma had been defeated and he was back at home. He worked on his homework silently, without even complaining about the smell of the cheese, even though Plagg had been inching closer and closer to him with his snack to try to get some sort of reaction out of him.

"It really seemed like Hawkmoth- I mean, Father- I mean-"

"He's Hawkmoth when transformed," Plagg said helpfully, though he wasn't sure why Adrien needed reminding. "And not Hawkmoth when not transformed. I mean, he _is_ , but that wouldn't be the proper name to use."

"It seemed like Hawkmoth really had something against me today," Adrien grumbled, frowning. "The akuma was focusing more on me than on Ladybug. Like, there were a ton of times during the fight when the akuma could have attacked either of us, but it chose to go after me every single time, and _Chat Noir_ wasn't even supposed to be the target!"

"It was probably Hawkmoth being frustrated that he hadn't figured you out," Plagg said, yawning. "So he behaved like a little child and decided to take it out on you, as if _you're_ to blame for not wanting a supervillain to know your secret identity. Toddler logic, really."

Adrien smiled slightly at that.

"I'm sure he'll get over it soon enough," Plagg added. He yawned again. He needed a _nap_. Maybe he could sleep while Adrien ate dinner, unless there was something cheesy on the menu. All of this running around and planning and spying stuff was _really_ eating into his sleeping schedule. "And then the akumas will go back to kicking you around only a _normal_ amount."

Adrien made a face and fiddled with his ring. It had become a habit of his, a way to work off excess energy without fidgeting too much. Plagg glanced at it, noticing that it was the decoy again. Adrien must have changed it back practically as soon as he detransformed after the fight.

"Did you ask Nino about pretending the ring was from him?" Plagg asked, suddenly remembering the conversation they had had that morning. "What did he say?"

Adrien frowned at him. "I asked him at lunch. What, didn't you hear?"

"Of course not, I was _sleeping_."

"I think he was a little confused, but he agreed," Adrien said. He was smiling, but soon enough the expression dropped away. "I think he guessed that I was hiding something from my dad and didn't want to talk about it. It's crazy to think that just mentioning my father is enough for Nino to just agree to cover for me with no questions asked, and _he_ doesn't even know that my father is Hawkmoth!"

Plagg was rather of the opinion that if Nino ever found out that Mr. Agreste was Hawkmoth, he would probably be tempted to go after the man as revenge for his own akumatization. Plagg had once overheard Nino complaining to Adrien about how ridiculous he looked as an akuma and how he would like to have "a word or two" with Hawkmoth about it.

Dinner that evening did _not_ have any cheese (a travesty, in Plagg's opinion) so he napped through most of it, only waking up once to Nooroo practically giving him a heart attack by popping into Adrien's bag unexpectedly to tell him that the ring ruse had worked perfectly and that Mr. Agreste had been caught between stewing about the lost lead and being moderately cheerful about his son not being one of the superheroes fighting against him.

"Yippee," Plagg had said grumpily, not at all pleased about being interrupted mid-nap. "Fabulous. Now can I _sleep?_ "

Once Adrien was done with dinner and had started washing up for bed, Plagg headed out towards the office again. This time, with Nooroo's warning, he could sense the motion detectors in the office, guarding it from any nighttime intruders. Some night when he wasn't tired and grumpy he probably should disarm that in some way where Nathalie and Mr. Agreste wouldn't be able to tell and fix it.

Inside the safe, Plagg shuffled through the papers in the folder first. Normally he would have just tossed everything all over and then settled down to read- that was what he always did whenever he was looking for something in Adrien's bag, after all- but somehow he suspected that Mr. Agreste would notice if something was out of order. So instead, he worked very, very carefully.

There first few pieces of paper were photos of Mr. Agreste and his wife in what was probably Tibet, considering the mountains in the background. The scenery actually looked pretty familiar, so much so that it only took Plagg a few seconds to place it.

They had been close to the temple. Really, _really_ close. Some of the photos were even taken from the same valley that the temple had been in. They had times on them, with the ones from the valley being the most recent. The very last one had Mrs. Agreste alone, walking towards the ruins of the temple.

The rest of the papers in the folder looked like notes. There was a page filled with series of numbers, each followed by a date. The last one was circled in red. There was what looked like a hastily drawn sketch of the temple ruins, and then another sketch that looked more like a map of the ruins. There were scribbles labeling the different parts, with one part circled with red pen. Plagg squinted, trying to make out the writing, but it was a lost cause.

Apparently Adrien's father didn't have the best handwriting in the world when he was in a hurry. That was going to make reading a lot of his notes a pain.

The rest of the papers were scribbles about more legends, something to do with trapped souls and releasing them. Plagg scanned through them, but couldn't make heads or tails of them. Trapped souls? What did that have to do with the Miraculous?

Eh, maybe Fu would know.

Plagg (carefully) stuffed everything back into the folder and propped it back up where it had been. Once it looked just right, he headed over to the journals.

There were a _lot_ of them. Like, a lot a lot.

Sighing, Plagg settled in. He had a feeling that this was going to be a _long_ night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you that might have missed it, there is now a Plagg and the Butterfly Costume: Outtakes story, with the first chapter focusing on Mr. Agreste's POV from the first couple of chapters.
> 
> And as always, reviews make my day! :)


	5. Chapter 5

Adrien arrived slightly early at the old man's place after eating dinner. Fu ushered them in, and guided them behind a set of screens. Ladybug would sit on the other side, and Fu would sit at the end so he could see both of them at once.

"Do you have cheese?" Plagg wanted to know at once. Adrien groaned.

"Plagg, you _just_ had cheesy potatoes _and_ a quarter of a round of Camembert! You can't _possibly_ need more."

"The Camembert was to recharge after a fight," Plagg reminded Adrien tartly. "And I can _always_ have more cheese. Besides, I've been working _hard_ recently."

"I can't deny that," Fu said. He reached into a cupboard and pulled out a small plate of cheese. He smiled at the look of dismay on Plagg's face at such a small offering. "I _did_ ask Ladybug to bring some treats with her when she comes."

Plagg perked up. Adrien froze.

"Wait, was I supposed to bring something? I could have brought something!"

Plagg zoned them out as he inspected the plate of cheese. It included all of his favorites, sliced thin as though _that_ was going to slow him down at all. He was munching on some Gouda when there was a knock. Adrien quickly scuttled back to his spot behind the screen while Fu went to answer the door.

"Remember, Ladybug and Chat Noir, don't talk loud enough to hear each other," Fu reminded them as Ladybug settled down on the other side of the screen. She pushed a warm, amazing-smelling bag forward towards Fu and he accepted it with a smile. "Chat Noir, I brought Ladybug up to speed yesterday with who Hawkmoth is and the kinds of things he has on hand. Plagg, have you discovered anything new with the journals?"

"The folder has a bunch of pictures of Mr. Agreste and Mrs. Agreste in Tibet, near where the temple was," Plagg reported, inching towards the bag Ladybug had brought. Had she brought cheese bread? He had to know. "And then a drawing of the ruins, and then a map like it was drawn from above, and some legends about trapped souls or something. I couldn't make heads or tails out of that one. Bunch of jibberish."

Fu's eyes widened and he exchanged a look with Wayzz, but he didn't comment.

"And the journals are all research on the Miraculous and where the temple might be," Plagg reported. He inched a little closer. He was 97% sure that he could smell cheese bread in the bag. "And then a daily journal when they went on their trips to Tibet, where they went, any clues they had gotten, any leads that hadn't panned out. That sort of thing."

"I would be interested in seeing the last journal the most, I think," Fu said. "And all of them eventually, of course, but the last one should have the most accurate information about the temple location all condensed together. And I'd also like to see the things in the folder you mentioned. If we can get pictures of those things when we go in to recover the book and the scrolls permanently, that would be fantastic."

There was whispering from Ladybug, and then Tikki spoke up. "How are we planning on doing that? Isn't there always someone in Mr. Agreste's office during the day? And the entire place is locked down at night now. Heavy metal shutters over every window and door, even more secure than when he got attacked during Jackady. And we went past the other night, and there's all sorts of motion detectors around the windows."

Plagg didn't respond, too busy burrowing into the bag. Yes, there they were, some lovely cheese buns! He draped himself over one, inhaling deeply.

"We would have to get in during the day, then just stay hidden inside until everyone goes to bed," Tikki continued. "And then we would have to get into the office, and it would have even _more_ security on it, do the switches all in the dark, somehow get onto the computer and delete those files, and then hide for the rest of the night until the windows open again. There's a _lot_ that can go wrong there."

"We _do_ still have a lot of planning to do on that front," Fu admitted as Plagg took a first tiny nibble. _Ahh, yes, this was bliss_. "Do you and Ladybug want to lead the brainstorming on that? That is, after all, traditional."

And suddenly Plagg was paying attention again.

"Uh, they will _not_ ," he objected, zipping out of the bag with cheese bun firmly in paw. "Why should they? I was the one doing all of the work and making all of the discoveries. Why should they get to boss me around now?"

There was a simultaneous exasperated sigh from Tikki and Wayzz, but Plagg ignored them. They just liked bossing him around and taking all of the credit. But _he_ was the one who made the big discovery this time around, so why shouldn't he have more of a say in what they did?

"Very well, then," Fu said. "Plagg, do you have any ideas on how they could get into the office without being detected?"

...oh, right. Being in charge of making the plans meant _work_. A pity, really. Then Plagg brightened as he remembered that he had actually thought of something that could be used as a diversion, and it would actually be fun to boot.

"If Hawkmoth's fancy little elevator to his lair broke, he would get stuck under the house with no way out," Plagg reported, grinning. "And then he would call his assistant, and then she would probably have to leave the office for a little bit to find a repairman. We would have to be super-fast, and probably have a lookout, and destroy some of the security beforehand as well in case the assistant sets it up when she steps out, but it would be easier to get in and out of the house, and the lights would be on and the computer with the files probably on as well."

Fu looked impressed.

"And the security cameras," Adrien hissed. "What about-"

"And we would have to figure out how to put the security cams on loop," Plagg finished, proud of himself for such a lovely plan. He took a large mouthful of cheese bread to celebrate. Planning stuff wasn't so bad after all.

"That sounds like it could work," Fu agreed. "Though why not get him stuck up in his lair instead? I'm just concerned that he might be able to find a way out faster if he is simply stuck partway."

"He could make an akuma if he was stuck in the lair," Tikki pointed out.

"An' there'th no doorth in th' thunnel," Plagg managed around his mouthful. Tikki looked grossed out and he made a face at her.

"That will be our first attempt, then," Fu decided. "And we will have time yet before that happens. Plagg- ah, after you swallow, please- did you explore the security in the lair at all yet?"

Plagg swallowed loudly. "Nope. No time. I spent all of my time _reading_ , and we weren't in the- er, we weren't nearby often enough for me to explore the lair, too," he corrected himself after seeing Tikki's frantic shushing motions. He wasn't lying, either- Adrien had had his normal activities keeping him out of the house, of course, but then he had also been spending an unprecedented amount of time in the school library or hanging out with his friends. It was obvious that he didn't want to be home with his father there. He wasn't going to be able to avoid it tomorrow, though, since he and his three friends were all going to be working on a group project at the Agreste mansion. They had been planning it for a while and had even gotten Mr. Agreste's permission to meet there, so there was really no way to change it now without raising suspicion. Plagg could do his lair investigation then.

Granted, he would probably be joined by Tikki since her holder would be over as well, but that was fine. She could do some of the work, too, as long as she didn't try to take all of the credit.

"So that still needs to be done," Fu said. "Okay. So, does anyone have any further ideas about what else we need to find out?"

 

* * *

 

 

"I can't wait until the old man decides that it's safe for you and Ladybug to know who each other are," Plagg grumbled once he and Adrien got back to the mansion. Adrien had had to transform and go in through the bathroom window, since the house was already locked down. "The cheese bread got cold because you and Ladybug had to talk through Tikki and I, and cold cheese bread is no good."

"I can warm it up for you, Plagg," Adrien said with a sigh. He set the goodie bag that Fu had packed for him on his desk. "And you know that now it's more important than ever that I don't know who she is. I'm too close to Hawkmoth on a regular basis. Like, maybe it would be fine if _she_ knows who I am, but until my father is in jail..."

Adrien trailed off and his face took on the same expression of misery that had been so common these past few days. Plagg didn't understand immediately- putting Hawkmoth in jail would be a _good_ thing! no more akuma attacks interrupting his day!- and then it clicked.

Right. Adrien would be putting his own father in jail. Since his mother was missing, he wouldn't have any parents left and his future would kind of be up in the air. He probably wanted to avoid that but at the same time, he wanted the Hawkmoth threat eliminated.

That _would_ probably be not a whole lot of fun.

"Fu could probably come up with a plan," Plagg pointed out. "For what would happen with you afterwards, I mean. He's probably been thinking about it ever since Ladybug brought the book in."

Adrien still didn't look particularly comforted.

"We can ask the old man next time we visit," Plagg suggested. He wasn't very good at the _comfort_ stuff. "Like I said, he's probably been thinking about it. And the Guardian is pretty much always the one to deal with it when holders become orphans before they're old enough to be on their own. Even if Fu hasn't had to deal with it before much, Wayzz probably has some ideas."

"The legal system has probably changed a bit since Wayzz last had to deal with anything like this," Adrien said with a sigh. He picked the bag up again and peered inside. "I'm gonna go down to the kitchen to warm this up, Plagg. I'll be right back."

Plagg perked up. "Okay!"

Adrien trotted off, and Plagg settled on the desk. As much as he wanted to dream of visions of cheese bread, his thoughts kept returning to Adrien's problem. His Chosen was right- the legal system had changed now, and Fu couldn't just come out of nowhere and adopt Adrien once Mr. Agreste was in jail where he belonged, and neither could Ladybug's family. Either Mr. Agreste or Nathalie might already have plans in place in case something happened to Mr. Agreste and if they did, there would be almost nothing Fu could do about it.

Hopefully Adrien wouldn't have to move out of Paris. He wouldn't be happy about that.

It wasn't long before Adrien returned. He had all of the bread on a tray that he was carrying with hot mitts. One of the kitchen staff must have stopped him from just shoving things in the microwave to warm up and _destroying_ them, like Adrien had the last time he bought cheese bread for Plagg.

"I got some Camembert for you, too," Adrien added as Plagg sighed and draped himself happily over the warm cheese rolls. "But maybe we should save that for the morning. I don't know if I'll have time to sneak out and get more before my friends arrive tomorrow." He looked suddenly worried. "Do you think I should have tried to move our group project meeting somewhere else? I don't really want my friends so close to Father. It's not safe for them-"

"Eh, it's just as safe as it was before you found out about Hawkmoth," Plagg commented. "And he might have seen it as suspicious if you suddenly changed the location after begging and pleading and bargaining with Nathalie to have them come over in the first place."

"Right, he might wonder what I learned to not want to do it anymore," Adrien said. He snagged one of the cookies on the tray and bit into it moodily. It only took a second for his expression to brighten, though. "Hey! I recognize these cookies! Ladybug must have bought everything from the Dupain-Cheng bakery. I should probably buy next time, then. She brought a lot, and it couldn't have been cheap."

Plagg just rolled his eyes and bit into his delicious, cheesy bread. What Ladybug had brought was doubtless just the day's leftovers and it hadn't cost her a cent, but he could hardly say that to Adrien without giving away who Ladybug was.

"Or maybe I should just volunteer to do that next time," Adrien continued. He took another bite of cookie. "Because if Ladybug's just been bringing treats on a regular basis, then she might just be planning to always bring stuff. Or I could ask during the next akuma fight, maybe. What do you think?"

Plagg made a show of thinking about it so he could keep enjoying his lovely cheese bread. " _Weeeeeell_ , I think maybe you could offer to bring, but if she objects at all then don't argue. Maybe she has some sort of frequent-buyer deal there."

" _I_ get a 'friend of the family' discount," Adrien argued. Plagg sighed.

"Fine. _Fine_. Ask, then, but if she says no, then just bring some chocolate or something instead. Now can I eat my cheese in peace?"

 

* * *

 

 

Plagg was busy messing with the security system in the office when Adrien's friends arrived. Nathalie buzzed them in without question, though she _did_ let Mr. Agreste know that the teens had arrived.

"I don't know why I agreed to it," Mr. Agreste muttered from his spot at his computer. He scowled down at the sketch he had been working on. "More people, more eyes, and considering that one of Adrien's _friends_ is that nosy reporter girl..."

Plagg tried not to smirk. It sounded like Mr. Agreste had wanted to go to his lair and make an akuma but didn't dare with three additional people in the house. All the better for him, then- Plagg could explore his lair without fear of being interrupted.

Five minutes later, Adrien's friends were in and settled. Not long afterwards, Tikki joined Plagg in the ceiling above Mr. Agreste's office.

"I can't believe he was so close and it took so long to notice," Tikki commented. "So where is the lair, then? Just on top of the house? How does he even _get_ there?"

"There's some switch in the painting," Plagg told her. "Some combination of buttons hidden within the picture that he pushes. If we need a break from akuma attack sometime, I figured it would probably be easy enough to break a spring or something in one of the buttons so he can't make it work."

"Adrien and Marinette have three tests next Thursday," Tikki informed Plagg, as though Adrien hadn't already told him that several times. "Break it then. Marinette _hates_ feeling like she has to rush through tests just because there's an akuma raging around, and I'm sure Adrien feels the same way. If you can break something that would _ensure_ that they have the entire day off..."

"I've already figured out which part would be the most annoying and time-consuming fiddly thing to replace," Plagg cut across her with a wide grin. "Guaranteed to bring the most chaos. What, do you think I can't do my job properly?"

"More like I thought you would need prompting to help this much," Tikki corrected, following Plagg as he headed upwards through the walls. "Normally you drag your feet and stomp and complain about having to help out."

Plagg scowled. He did _not_. It was just that people never gave him enough cheese as compensation to make _helping_ particularly worth his while. Adrien supplied him with plenty of cheese- he had raided the kitchen for leftover mac 'n cheese to heat up for Plagg several times, _and_ bought a larger-then-normal cheese allowance for Plagg because he _understood_ that so much more effort would take more energy.

"This is _ridiculous_ ," Tikki breathed as they burst out of the wall and into Mr. Agreste's lair. "It's- what on earth was this even originally built for? Most of Nooroo's holders just operate out of a normal room!"

"Most of Nooroo's holders aren't power-hungry maniacs terrorizing the city," Plagg pointed out dryly. "They can usually stand a person or two figuring out who they are. With Mr. Agreste, Nathalie knows, but-"

Tikki gasped. "Nathalie _knows?_ And she hasn't said anything to anyone?"

"I think it might have been an accident, her finding out, and there seems to be some sort of threatening involved to keep it quiet." It was hard to tell, really. Nathalie had perfected the ability to keep an emotionless face and Plagg hadn't seen Nooroo again, so he hadn't been able to ask about Nathalie. "I don't know. Nooroo would, but Mr. Agreste is keeping him close pretty much all the time."

"I suppose that can wait, then." Tikki flew a lap around the lair, staring at it. "This place is giving me the creeps."

"All of the butterflies, probably," Plagg suggested, but he could feel it too. If he focused, he could sense that there was a _lot_ that could be destroyed in the lair, far more than the minimalistic decor would suggest.

Then Plagg phased through the wall and came face-to-face with a whole cluster of missiles.

_Oh._

He moved up, and in the next hidden cavity there was another set of missiles, ready to go and mounted on a rotating arm. Both had been pointed inwards, but they could clearly be turned around and shot in the opposite direction if needed. A quick burst of speed and Plagg spotted fifteen more of the missiles in three more cavities. The place was absolutely _filled_ with the things. If anyone came in who wasn't wanted, Mr. Agreste could blast them to bits.

Well, unless they were a superhero. Then they would probably be surprised and taken off guard as they tried to avoid getting hit _too_ much, but getting knocked off balance and having to focus on the missiles instead of Hawkmoth would leave them open to a surprise attack from the supervillain. On the other hand, if Hawkmoth tried to set the missiles off and they all clattered to the ground, useless, then _Hawkmoth_ would be the one taken off guard.

Maybe they hadn't figured out how they were going to attack Hawkmoth yet, but it wouldn't hurt to disarm all of the missiles up here anyway. It would take a lot of effort and energy on Plagg's part, which meant that it would take a lot of recharging to get everything done. And if he recharged too many times during one day, then Plagg would get worn out and Adrien's transformation into Chat Noir wouldn't last as long. If an akuma attacked, they would be in trouble.

"Plagg? Plagg, where did you go?"

"Look in the walls, Tikki," Plagg called back. Seconds later, there was an alarmed little gasp.

"Oh no! That's awful!"

"The suits would protect Ladybug and Chat Noir, but having the floor blown up under them could throw them off long enough for Hawkmoth to get the upper hand," Plagg commented.

Tikki popped into Plagg's compartment. "That isn't the only thing he could do! Hawkmoth could threaten to blow up the entire city with this arsenal! And since it isn't akuma damage, then the Miraculous Cure wouldn't do anything, and Adrien and Marinette _know_ that. If he threatens to blow up the city unless they turn their Miraculous over, then what could they do? Can you break these, Plagg?"

"I gotta be careful not to break anything that would send an error signal back," Plagg said. He peered at the missiles next to him. Tikki had a point- Hawkmoth could blow up the city, and then tons and tons of lovely cheese would get destroyed in the process!

There would probably be a lot of lives lost, too. That would also be bad. Worse, he meant. Definitely worse.

"So what can you break, then?"

"I _could_ make the gunpowder expire," Plagg said, peering at the missiles. "But that would take more energy than just going through and making stuff rust."

"I will _personally_ fly a bag of cheese up here if it means that you can get this done faster!" Tikki begged. "Camembert and Gouda and Brie and Mozzarella, everything you like. If you just do a couple a night until next Thursday-"

"Next Thursday?"

"The day when Adrien and Marinette have all of their tests and you were going to break one of the elevator buttons so Mr. Agreste can't get up here?" Tikki reminded him. "If he can't get up anyway, then Adrien won't need to transform, and you can recharge as many times as we need without having to worry about how that will affect Adrien's transformation later on!"

"I _would_ be concerned about him getting things fixed by the end of the day," Plagg warned. "So there could easily be an attack at the end of the day if he discovers the problem early on. And I would require a _lot_ of cheese for this much destruction, and not just that cheap stuff, either. _Good_ cheese."

Tikki made a face. "You know as well as I do that the cheap stuff would do in a pinch. You'll make your boy go broke with the amount you eat."

Plagg couldn't help but snort. "Adrien, broke? Never. His family is loaded with money."

"His _father_ is loaded with money," Tikki corrected. "And soon he won't _have_ a father anymore. And maybe he'll inherit most of Mr. Agreste's money, but not until he's older. I don't know how the inheritance stuff is supposed to work if Mr. Agreste is in jail but still alive and Mrs. Agreste is..."

"Missing," Plagg supplied. He shrugged at Tikki's look. "The kid hasn't told me anything else. I don't know if he _knows_ anything else. Actually, I think I probably suspect more."

"You think something happened when she and Mr. Agreste were in the valley looking for the Miraculous," Tikki filled in. Her eyes widened. "Oh! But then how is she supposed to be rescued? The magic there- it would have trapped her if she stumbled on one of the old protections."

"Ask Fu, not me," Plagg grumbled. He really didn't know why people kept asking _him_ questions. Since when was he supposed to be the source of all knowledge?

"I suppose that would be something to bring up while Adrien isn't there," Tikki added, pulling Plagg after her as she started flying through the walls. "We don't know for _sure_ \- well, okay, I suppose those papers in the folder you told us about were a pretty good sign that she did actually get trapped by the magic in the temple, but we don't know for sure if there's a way to free those who have been caught, and we don't want to get Adrien's hopes up."

"Right, right, of course." Plagg let Tikki drag him through a couple more cells in the walls before he spoke up again. "Uh, so what are we doing, exactly?"

" _Plagg!_ We're counting the number of missiles Mr. Agreste has in here! How else are we supposed to figure out how long it's going to take to disarm them all?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now Ladybug is properly involved! Next time: there are some, ah, creative solutions to certain problems, and Plagg gets to destroy some of Mr. Agreste's toys.
> 
> As always, reviews make my day! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since some people were apparently puzzled by the missiles mentioned last chapter, I'm just going to go ahead and point out now that I didn't make those up out of thin air. They were shown in Robustus and I just decided to incorporate them. They're probably technically mini-missiles or something but eh. It's splitting hairs at that point.

For their second meeting, Adrien and Plagg arrived late thanks to a photoshoot that ran over. Adrien ran all the way to Fu's place, though Plagg didn't understand the hurry. It wasn't as though the old man was going to be going anywhere.

So of course when they got there, Ladybug and Tikki had already arrived and were sitting in Adrien's usual spot behind the screen. Plagg could see Tikki already perched on the low table, nibbling on a small cake. Next to her, Wayzz was sipping away at a small cup of tea.

Plagg perked up when he saw his normal cheese plate set out. He zipped towards it, ignoring Adrien's quiet apologies to Fu for being late. He mumbled out quick greetings to his fellow kwami and then dove into the cheese.

The cheese plate was the best part of these boring meetings, really. But Plagg knew that any moment now, he was going to be dragged away from the cheese to act as a mouthpiece for Adrien so he and his lovebug could talk to each other.

"What- what's this for?" Adrien asked suddenly, sounding positively puzzled. Plagg glanced over long enough to see his Chosen pick up what looked like a weird black plastic mask.

"Ladybug brought them," Fu said, as though _that_ was any sort of explanation. Plagg glanced over and saw Ladybug sitting on the other side of the screen- or, well, he was _assuming_ that it was Ladybug. Black pigtails stuck out from the bottom of a black mask identical to the one Adrien held. She waved at him. "They have a voice changer built in, and Ladybug thought you two would be able to use them to talk without having to go through the kwamis while still keeping your identities safe. I believe she called them... Darth Raider masks?"

"Darth Vader," Tikki corrected.

"Ladybug is my new favorite," Plagg said around a mouthful of cheese. "Now I don't have to stop eating just so you can ask a million questions. I mean, you'll look like a dork, but..."

Adrien grinned and jammed the helmet over his head, apparently unconcerned by the dorkiness. "This is so cool!"

Plagg blinked. That...was definitely a voice change. He had _not_ been expecting that.

"And they were on clearance," Ladybug added, her own voice just as distorted. "Because the paint job got messed up somehow. The masks are scratched, but the voice things work well enough."

Adrien laughed. "Your voice sounds so funny like this."

"You're one to talk," Ladybug retorted.

"That _is_ going to take some getting used to," Fu said with a laugh. "But it was quite a creative solution, I have to admit. Clearly I made a _very_ good choice when I picked you for Ladybug."

"You really did," Adrien spoke up. Plagg could tell by the tilt of his Chosen's head that he was doubtless giving the screen in Ladybug's direction a soppy lovestruck look. "I don't know what I would do without my Bugaboo."

Plagg made a face and dove with more vigor into his cheese. He really didn't need to spend any more of his life listening to Adrien flirt and pine. It was lucky that he wasn't alert when Adrien was transformed, because from what Plagg could tell, Adrien flirted with Ladybug _all the time_ while they were transformed.

"Both Ladybug and Chat Noir have been excellent choices this time around," Wayzz spoke up, thankfully cutting off any more flirty banter between the two superheroes. "You both fight wonderfully."

"But now we must talk of more serious things," Fu agreed, coming to sit by the table that the kwamis were on. "Tikki has told me already about some of the things that she and Plagg are planning. There are...security elements, in the lair, that you're in the process of destroying, is that correct?"

Plagg nodded by way of answer. He didn't want to have to hastily swallow the lovely creamy Brie that he had just bitten into.

"And from what I hear, that's going along well," Fu pressed. "And you have plans to finish the project this Thursday?"

"He's going to break an elevator button so Mr. Agreste can't go up to the lair and transform," Tikki volunteered, wiping cake crumbs off of her mouth. "So it won't matter that he's had to recharge a zillion times. And Ladybug is going to bring some cheese bread and some cheese up to a hidden spot on the roof so Plagg can keep recharging."

Plagg perked up. He hadn't heard that that part of the plan had been confirmed. He had rather thought that Tikki hadn't actually meant it when she said they would bring cheese for him and that he would have to keep going back down to the kitchens or to Adrien's room in between destroying missiles. Hopefully Tikki had told- or would tell- her Chosen how much cheese he would need, and he also hoped that she wouldn't skimp.

Fu was stroking his beard. "That sounds interesting. But you know your strength wanes the further away you are from your Chosen, and surely Chat Noir would be at school that day?"

"I have a lot of exams," Adrien confirmed. "And I've kind of been worried about it, since I don't want to have to miss exams because of an akuma attack."

"That was the initial idea behind breaking the button," Tikki chimed in before Plagg could. Not that he actually _wanted_ to do all of the talking "So that they could complete their exams in peace. And then we figured that since Mr. Agreste wouldn't be able to transform anyway, we might as well take advantage of it. And I would be there as well, to counteract the effects of the distance between Plagg and Chat Noir as much as I can."

"And I can sit in a cafe or a park nearby and have Wayzz join you, to help further," Fu volunteered, and Plagg only _just_ refrained from rolling his eyes. If it weren't for the fact that having Tikki and Wayzz there _would_ help bolster his destruction powers with Adrien off at school, he would wonder if they didn't trust him to be able to destroy stuff on his own. He didn't need babysitters.

"And I'll come hang out nearby at lunch," Adrien added in. "In, er, the park or something. And after school, too."

Plagg hid a snigger. He knew full well that Adrien would be coming home and eating in the dining room just like normal, but he could hardly say that. Fu would end him for the early reveal.

"I'm glad we have a plan set for that, then. Hopefully there won't be an akuma attack late that day but if there is, then Ladybug, you will have to be prepared to do the brunt of the fighting. Plagg will be exhausted after that much destruction and recharging and won't be able to hold on to a transformation long."

"Right. Tikki already told me about that."

Plagg rolled his eyes. Of _course_ Tikki had. She had always been ridiculously responsible about those sorts of things.

"And then we need to start planning further ahead," Fu told them. "We need to recover the book and the scrolls and then destroy the digital copy that Hawkmoth has, preferably without alerting him, though I don't know how we could do that. I don't know how far someone without training would be able to get with decoding it, but we cannot allow him the opportunity."

"We could always take the files off of his computer to see how far he's gotten," Adrien suggested.

"And we could introduce a virus somehow to make it look like _that_ was what wiped the files off of the computer," Ladybug added. "I know someone who might know how to do that, actually. He was-"

"The Gamer," Adrien and Ladybug finished in unison. Adrien perked up- Plagg was certain that his Chosen was beaming under that dorky mask- and turned towards the screen separating the two superheroes. "Yeah! He probably could, considering that he made that robot! And maybe he could help us with the security cameras- I mean, Plagg could probably break them somehow, but it would be more convincing that nobody was there if the cameras were on the whole time, but just showed an empty loop of video."

Fu was smiling at both of them, looking for all the world like a fond old grandpa. "Ah, young minds! You certainly are more in tune with today's technology than I am. Those sound like excellent ideas. You are certain that the young man you're referring to could keep a secret and not accidentally let word get out about how he's helping superheroes?"

"He's rather down-to-earth, I think," Adrien said, and Plagg stuffed another wedge of Camembert in his mouth to muffle his laughter. Adrien was trying so hard to pretend that he didn't know Max in person, even though Fu definitely knew and Ladybug would probably soon know that they were in the exact same class. "I mean, he doesn't freak out when we show up, and I think he could understand how serious this is."

"Definitely," Ladybug agreed. "He's trustworthy."

"Then you should try to speak to him in private as soon as possible," Fu told them. "I'm sure that the young man will probably need some time to develop the- the virus, did you say?- and figure out the security cameras."

"Tomorrow evening, maybe?" Adrien suggested. "So we can figure out the security camera system information."

Plagg made a face. That sounded like it was work for him. _Again_. Too bad he couldn't just suggest that Ladybug come over so Tikki could do the exploring this time. Even with the extra cheese that he got, all of this _research_ nonsense was starting to get a little old.

He zoned out again as Fu started discussing potential new powers and how Adrien and Ladybug might get them. He had made some good progress with the decoding and translation of the relevant pages in the book, apparently, but wanted to be certain that he was understanding things correctly before teaching them to the superheroes.

Plagg _really_ didn't care. He didn't summon the powers, just supplied them. Adrien would have to do the work of remembering whatever it was that Fu said. Once the cheese was gone, Plagg rolled over and took a nap in the beam of sun that was hitting the table. He woke up when he was rudely tossed in Adrien's bag when he was packing up to go home.

"That was interesting," Adrien said as he hurried through the darkening streets. "New powers! Even if Master Fu _did_ say they would probably be hard to master this early on and that we should try not to use them."

Plagg blinked and yawned. "Why not?"

"Because we want to be able to surprise fath- I mean, Hawkmoth," Adrien corrected himself. "Once we actually face him, I mean. If he knows all of our attacks already, then he can think of ways to counter them. If we have attacks he doesn't know about, then then he can't do that. So I guess we can do new stuff if no one is looking, but that doesn't exactly happen super-often."

Plagg shrugged, uninterested. All of this _strategy_ talk bored him. He just needed to know what he had to do to keep his Chosen safe, and a nice nap. And cheese.

(He always needed cheese. That was a given.)

 

* * *

 

Plagg was Not Having Fun.

"I'm already getting tired," Plagg complained as he phased back through the walls of the lair to mess up another couple missiles. He had already made the gunpowder in over a dozen of the weapons expire completely just that morning, and while it had been fun at first to watch the energy give out and dissipate as the powder unnaturally aged, it had gotten old.

Really old, really fast.

"You wouldn't have this much to do if you hadn't taken two evenings off," Tikki chided. She and Wayzz had been circling around the lair all morning, keeping track of Plagg's progress so he wouldn't miss anything and leave active missiles in the lair. "And it's not _meant_ to be exciting. This is a _job."_

Plagg scowled- he had taken one night off because Adrien had transformed unnecessarily to go visit some classmate that wasn't Ladybug, and the other night off because of an akuma attack late in the evening- and zipped towards the wall cavity that Wayzz was waiting by. He phased through and went to the first missile. The gunpowder crumpled into no more than black dust under his paws. If Hawkmoth tried setting them off, they would just let out a cloud of black smoke and slide forward off of the launching rig to fall unimpressively to the floor in a grand display of ineptitude.

Plagg decided to amuse himself by imagining the look on Hawkmoth's face if he ever _did_ try to shoot off the missiles. There would be wide eyes, there would be cursing, there would be foot-stomping, and there would probably be panic as the superheroes pounced on him and took his Miraculous.

"Hawkmoth is still struggling to figure out what is wrong," Wayzz reported after Plagg emerged from the wall, leaving three more thoroughly expired missiles in his wake. "Apparently he _did_ decide to try to fix it himself, like you thought, and he's gotten little bits and pieces all over the floor." Wayzz held up a small spring. "I may have, ah, _borrowed_ a piece."

Plagg sniggered. Ah, Mr. Agreste's reaction once he figured out that he had "lost" a piece would be a sight to see. Unfortunately, he was stuck up in the lair all day until he got every last missile destroyed. Maybe he would have to break another button some other day so he could see the results for himself. He could pull that stunt on a weekend sometime so he could sit and listen and laugh at Mr. Agreste as he struggled to fix it all day.

The cheese stash that Ladybug (Plagg was _pretty_ certain that he had heard her name before- after all, she _was_ Adrien's classmate and friend- but he _really_ couldn't remember what it was, and he wasn't about to admit that by asking Tikki) and Adrien had put together was the one bright spot in Plagg's day. Ladybug had bought a variety cheese pack sort of thing that had all of Plagg's favorite cheeses, and then several cheese bread buns. Adrien had added a round of Brie and another of Camembert, all sliced into chunks. It was 100% Plagg's dream, and if only he hadn't had to work, then Plagg would be in heaven.

Unfortunately, Plagg was also 100% certain that he would never get a cheese basket like this again unless someone was trying to bribe him to do something or he was getting forced to work again.

"I'm only doing this for the cheese," Plagg grumbled to Tikki as he headed inside for the last time. He was starting to feel a little light-headed from the number of times he had had to recharge. "Otherwise, no way."

Tikki giggled at him. "You know full well that you're doing this to protect Adrien. You can't fool me. The cheese is just a bonus."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Plagg sniffed. "I am a creature motivated by cheese and cheese alone. Protecting my Chosen is just a bonus. Besides, who would get me my cheese if he got hurt?"

Tikki sighed.

"I mean, I _guess_ that the kid has grown on me just a bit," Plagg added with his most exasperated sigh. "And I would be a bit upset if he got hurt."

Tikki clearly wasn't fooled one bit.

"Adrien is about to leave," Wayzz reported, popping up into the lair again. "His lunch break is nearly over. Are you almost finished?"

"The cheese is finished," Tikki reported with a giggle. "And Plagg only has two more missiles to go."

"I'm going to be running on empty as soon as I'm done," Plagg whined. "And then I'll have to waste away for the whole afternoon until Adrien gets back after fencing."

"Not if you hurry up and catch Adrien before he goes back to school," Wayzz called through the walls as Plagg made the last dregs of gunpowder crumble into harmless dust. "I know he has cheese on him, and he could probably spare a few minutes to grab some more before going back to school."

"Why would I want to go to school?" Plagg demanded as he wobbled back out into the lair to join them. He was feeling a little fuzzy-headed now after so many recharges. "I have to listen to that blond brat yammer on and threaten to call her dad all day when things don't go her way. I just want to have some cheese and _sleep_."

"He's not talking about Adrien, is he?" Wayzz hissed to Tikki. The turtle kwami was frowning. "Adrien isn't a brat."

"He's talking about the Mayor's daughter," Tikki explained with a giggle as she guided- well, pulled- Plagg towards the covered window of the lair. "She's a bit of a character. And they have exams practically all day at school, so it should be quiet. And Plagg, you _know_ that you'll recover faster if you're close to Adrien."

Plagg tried to say something, but it came out as slurred mumbles.

"Yeah, he's exhausted," Tikki said with a sigh. "Wayzz, can you help me get him down to Adrien so he can sleep it off?"

"Certainly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next to be updated will be the outtakes (ft. "the trip to see a classmate that wasn't Ladybug").
> 
> As always, reviews make my day! :)


	7. Chapter 7

Sometimes it seemed like things were going a snail's pace in terms of preparing to defeat Hawkmoth. The scrolls had to be designed, printed off and properly aged (and of _course_ Plagg was asked to do that, because why not overwork the god of destruction just a little bit more?. He was rather regretting having insisted on playing a larger role than normal in taking down the supervillain. The ability to brag was _not_ worth this much work) and the book pages had to be altered just so and had been sent off to be bound, but it was taking quite a long time.

Other times, it seemed like everything was going too fast. It seemed like Plagg was given something new to investigate or check on every time he and Adrien went in to see Fu, and already talks about how they might try to approach the final fight were coming up. Plagg could tell that those particular talks made Adrien anxious.

After all, once the final battle was over, no one particularly knew what would happen to him.

"I don't _think_ I have any distant relatives or anything," Adrien told Fu. They had stopped in for tea and cheese and the chance to have a one-on-one chat with the old guardian. "Both mom and father were only children, they always told me, and my grandparents died when I was young."

"Do you think your father would have plans for guardianship somewhere, for in case something happened to him?" Fu asked. "Is he the kind of person who would do that?"

Plagg snorted before Adrien could answer. "He's the kind of person who thinks that he won't get caught," Plagg said derisively. "And who thinks that nothing will happen to him. Nooroo said that Hawkmoth wants to change the timeline, so he thinks that anything he does now doesn't matter, because it'll get erased later."

There was a pause.

"That... would have been good information to know earlier," Fu said slowly, turning to look at Plagg. "Did Nooroo say _what_ in the timeline Hawkmoth wants to alter?"

"Nope," Plagg told him. He took a large bite of Cheddar and continued talking, mostly because the face Wayzz made was hilarious. "And why does it matter, anyway? He's not supposed to get the Miraculous either way."

"It's just nice to know what is goals are," Fu said. He poured more tea for Adrien. "And perhaps it helps, to know that he did not intend for his actions now to be permanent. With an alteration in the timeline, all of the akumatizations would be erased, all of the damage to relationships undone. And he clearly did not intend to fail."

Plagg still didn't get how it would help. Then he took one look at Adrien's face and understood. Knowing that Mr. Agreste had akumatized himself and knowingly gone after his son had hurt Adrien a lot. The idea that Mr. Agreste had planned for that action to be eventually erased helped heal that ache just a bit, but hopefully not _too_ much.

After all, planned changed timeline or not, Mr. Agreste had _still_ thought that it would be a good idea to make Adrien think that his father was deeply upset and hurt and then try to hunt him down as a supervillain. And on top of that, Hawkmoth _had_ sent several akumas after Adrien knowingly, and there was still the whole matter of the 'equal exchange' and who that might have affected. It was better in the long run if Adrien just let go of his idea of a loving father and a perfect family now. It wouldn't be much longer before he would be helping put the man in jail.

"I bet the change that he wanted to make was to stop whatever it was that got my mom killed or taken away or whatever happened," Adrien said. His voice was a little unsteady. "I don't know if he was with her or not. But you said that there would be a price, right? That there would have to be some sort of a trade, and whatever that was couldn't be undone even by magic."

"I am willing to bet that you are correct," Fu said slowly. Plagg glanced up in time to see the glance the old man exchanged with Wayzz. "And I _do_ have a theory about what it was that happened. But before I say anything, I want to impress on you the fact that, without the journals or without talking to your father directly, there is no way to confirm my theory. At this point, it is entirely conjecture, as are any of my theories about how, _if_ I am correct, the problem might be solved. I don't want you to get your hopes up, only for you to be let down again in case anything is wrong."

Plagg perked up, interested, and set his cheese aside for once. It was time to see if the old man's theories were the same as Plagg's own. Adrien was staring at Fu, eyes wide.

"You think you know what happened?"

"I have vague theories," Fu corrected again. "Theories that may have _some_ evidence to support them, but given that I don't have all of the information that I need, I can't be too positive yet."

"I understand," Adrien promised, but even Plagg could sense the waves of anticipation coming off of him. If it weren't for the fact that he was sitting on the floor, he would probably be perched precariously on the edge of his seat. "Even a _theory_ is better than nothing. I'm tired of not having any clue about what happened to her. My father doesn't tell me _anything._ "

Fu still looked a bit wary. Plagg didn't blame him. Adrien had been pretty far along with accepting that his mother was gone, and while Fu wanted to not have to keep him in the dark, it would be _crushing_ if he was wrong and Adrien's mother couldn't be rescued somehow.

"Perhaps we should have Plagg ask Nooroo if he knows anything more first," Wayzz suggested. "If we can strengthen the theory a bit..."

"No! Please! I _get_ that it's just a theory!" Adrien pleaded. "But you said you had some evidence already. What if my father hasn't told Nooroo anything? Then are you going to keep it a secret for even longer?"

"I think that asking Nooroo would be a good idea, but I don't think we should wait until then," Fu decided. "Very well. Adrien, you said that your mother went missing in Tibet."

Adrien nodded.

"I originally trained in Tibet," Fu told him. "As I have told Ladybug, there was a temple of sorts there, where selected children went to learn the ways of the Miraculous. It was a hard life, and those who didn't keep up with the rigorous training that the monks demanded were cut from the training and sent home. Many of those who were ejected had turned out to be selfish, or greedy, or lazy, and therefore unfit to hold a Miraculous. Others simply had no interest in the lifestyle that the temple demanded of them, and they left on their own. Kwamis and elder Guardians picked successors out of those who were left."

Adrien nodded. He looked a bit confused, which was probably to be expected. There was no immediate connection to his mother there.

"Of course, problems sometimes arose when a student managed to hide their true nature until their later years of learning, when they actually started to come in contact with the Miraculous and learning more of the magic. By that time, they knew about the powers that they could have received and the magic that was possible, as well as the layout of the temple buildings. To protect the Miraculous holders, parts of the temple had heavy magic protection. Magical booby traps, if you will. If people went searching for the Miraculous holders- to hurt, or to steal- they would get trapped by the magic and held in limbo."

Adrien's eyes widened. " _Really?_ But what if someone was just curious or they were just exploring?"

"They could be freed," Fu assured him. "...how, I do not know. It happened only very rarely, and not at all after I was given a Miraculous, though that is probably because the temple was destroyed not long after I got Wayzz."

" _Destroyed?_ "

Fu winced. "I- well, to make a long story short, at least for now, I made a mistake. I trusted someone I should not have trusted, and they got hold of magic that they never should have been near. There was a battle, and the place was leveled. Many were killed. As the youngest and most inexperienced in battle, I was sent off with the scrolls and items that had been grabbed first, along with the box containing all of the inactive Miraculous, and tasked with keeping them safe. Keeping the box was always going to be my main duty, as the Turtle, but at the time the main concern was simply getting it out of reach of the rouges. Several of the other holders were killed in the first assault, since they had not been transformed at the time, and we managed to collect their Miraculous then. All except for the Butterfly and the Peacock, that is. We hadn't known right away that they had been killed, and then there was simply too much magic in the area to return. It was too dangerous. They were lost, along with the book and a number of scrolls."

Plagg was pretty certain that if Adrien's eyes got any bigger, they would just pop straight out of his head.

"Others have died either in battle or of natural causes since then, and most have managed to return their Miraculous to me, the box-holder," Fu finished. "Some have trained in their descendants instead and simply passed the Miraculous down, but that has never been the best way to do it. People are often blind to their kids' faults, and jealousy between sibling or other family members does not help. Either way, the number of active Miraculous is now significantly lower than it used to be."

Adrien was frowning now. "Wait, you said that there were a lot of kids that did this training," he objected. "But there's only seven Miraculous. How was that supposed to work? And I thought that you only had two out that you hadn't assigned, the butterfly and the peacock."

"There are others," Fu said, and Plagg sniggered as Adrien's jaw dropped further. "There are other levels to the box. The uppermost level is simply the most powerful circle. And some people did not receive Miraculous, but were instead trained to work with them and to perform magic alongside them. That was still seen as a great honor, since most did not make it that far. And you have to remember that people did not always live as long as they do now. Many would retire a couple decades in, so there was more turnover."

"With the exception of the Turtle, of course," Wayzz added. "We have the gift of longevity, so it made sense for us to keep going and be the ones to pass the knowledge along. It was pure chance that Master Fu came of age just when the previous holder was becoming unable to continue his duties."

"At any rate, after the temple was destroyed, it was impossible to go back," Fu continued. "Even once we regrouped and discovered that there were Miraculous missing- and from the top level, no less!- it was impossible. It was too dangerous. The magic was too wild still after so much being unleashed. I thought maybe I could give it some time to calm down and dissipate, and then I would make another attempt."

Wayzz looked solemn. "We waited too long and travelled too far. When we last tried to find the remains of the temple and test the magic levels, we couldn't find it. We searched for _weeks,_ and there was nothing. It was too well-hidden, and the Guardians rarely traveled out of the temple. We simply hadn't paid enough attention as we fled from the fight."

"What does this have to do with my mother?" Adrien finally asked. "I mean, it's super-interesting learning about the history, but..."

Fu smiled. "Right. From what we have discovered, your parents somehow located the temple and went there. There are photos of them approaching the temple ruins. This is just a theory, but I suspect that the last photo of your mother showed her approaching the Moonrise Temple, the one that had the most security and spells on it. It was where the Guardians slept, and where the most valuable artifacts were held. If she tried to enter and did not have a Miraculous, then she may have been trapped by one of the old spells. It is fortunate that your father apparently did not follow."

Adrien snorted. "Yeah, it's _really_ fortunate that he could escape and become a supervillain," he said, sarcasm dripping off of his words. "Absolutely peachy."

"If he had not, then we wouldn't have had a chance to guess at what might have happened to them," Fu pointed out. "They would just have mysteriously disappeared, and even if you had found the journals about the temple and where it might be, you would not have had a way to actually use that information."

Adrien still didn't look particularly mollified. "I _guess_. But if he _had_ gotten stuck, then I wouldn't have to deal with knowing that one of my parents is a supervillain! Even if we _can_ get my mom back, then people will still know that my father was Hawkmoth and they'll judge _me_ for it."

Plagg's ears flatted reflexively against his head. Adrien had clearly moved on to being angry about his father's supervillain activities. Maybe it was healthy, but Plagg was worried that the anger would make Adrien's carefully constructed mask around his father slip. It probably didn't help at all that Plagg and Fu were the only ones who knew that Adrien was Chat Noir and that his father was Hawkmoth. That didn't give him a whole lot of people to talk to about his feelings.

Maybe Fu would consider having Adrien and Ladybug reveal themselves to each other earlier than planned. Adrien could definitely stand having more support right now.

Fu didn't look bothered by Adrien's outburst. "In the long run, I believe people will forget. If we can take Hawkmoth down quietly, perhaps we can wrangle an agreement with the police to get less media attention. Wayzz and I will have to take a look at the laws and see if there is some way to argue that his identity should stay a secret because of you."

Adrien scowled and slouched. "I don't _care_ if his reputation is ruined. He deserves it. I just..." He let out a long breath. "I just want him to _not_ be a supervillain. I want my mother back. I want to know why they were even looking for the temple and the Miraculous in the first place. What if they were planning to use the Miraculous for evil anyway? Then what am I supposed to do?"

"I suspect we won't know the answers to your questions until we take a look at your father's journals," Fu told him. "They may have been looking to use the lost Miraculous, or they may have simply been curious. Wild guesses and theories help no one right now."

"But what if it turns out that my mother wanted to use the Miraculous for evil, too?" Adrien's voice was quiet. "Even if we have the butterfly and the peacock back and out of her reach, I would still be in the house. It would be dangerous to have the Chat Noir Miraculous near her then."

Plagg blinked, puzzled. Adrien had never had anything but kind things to say about his mother before. According to him, she was kind and caring and loving. Unlike his father, she had never been distant.

The kid must have been more rattled than he let on by the revelations about his father if he was starting to doubt his mother as well. Plagg wondered if the doubt was limited to just his parents, or if Adrien was wondering who he knew who he could actually trust.

Hopefully he was just going through a phase. As much as Plagg pretended not to care about anything, it would be awful if Adrien's cheerful outlook on life was destroyed by his father. His Chosen deserved better.

"We should be able to tell from the journals what her role was and what their goals might have been originally," Fu assured Adrien. "And if there is anything of concern, we will come up with plans to address it then. But if all else fails, I'm _very_ sure that Ladybug's family would be willing to take you in."

Oddly enough, Adrien didn't perk up as Plagg had expected. It was almost as if he hadn't heard.

Things didn't really get better after Adrien left Fu's house at the end of their meeting and headed over to school to work on his project with his friends. They could definitely tell that Adrien was in a sour mood, and they were also clearly confused about what had upset him. Adrien wasn't telling them anything- not that he _could_ , not really- and any attempts to cheer him up just seemed to deepen his scowl.

Now Plagg was _really_ concerned. Adrien's anger was healthy and not even remotely undeserved, but if he wasn't able to hide that anger around Nathalie and his father, then he might raise suspicion. Plagg had worked so hard (well, Nooroo and Fu's trick ring had worked so hard) to make Mr. Agreste think that Adrien wasn't Chat Noir and that he didn't know anything about his father's less-than-positive activities.

"Would it help if I went up and caused a leak in the lair?" Plagg asked as they headed home. Adrien was only moderately less grouchy now, after Marinette gave him a hug and some cookies before taking off. "It's supposed to rain tomorrow. And I won't even ask for any extra cheese to do it."

Much to his relief, Adrien cracked a small smile. "Maybe."

* * *

As the week went on, Plagg's little pranks on Mr. Agreste continued in earnest. He balanced a file folder on the edge of Mr. Agreste's desk _just so_ , so that it would be easy to accidentally knock off onto the floor. He made several of Mr. Agreste's pens run dry, and his bedroom door squeak, and his bedroom faucet drip during the night. Design sketches were misplaced and had to be redrawn. Lightbulbs burned out, and Mr. Agreste slipped and fell in a puddle of spilled water after a window "accidentally" was left open during a rain shower. His computer took a frustratingly long time to start up one day, and then there were problems with the internet connection the next day after Adrien had left for school.

They were small annoyances, sure. But they added up, and any time that Mr. Agreste had to take to fix things around the house meant that he had less time to spare to go up to the lair and akumatize people. Besides, Adrien always smiled a little bit more when Plagg reported his efforts.

(Not that he made it sound like he was putting in all that much effort. After all, Plagg had a reputation to keep.)

Of course, Adrien's sour mood returned as soon as they went in for another meeting with Master Fu. Plagg didn't completely understand it- annoyingly, Adrien only babbled on and on about his feelings when they were feelings of soppy lovesickness- but he suspected that the meeting only served as a reminder that they were getting progressively closer to the day when they would put his father in jail. Ladybug picked up on Adrien's mood only a few minutes into the meeting, even with their voices altered by the weirdo black masks and hidden from each other by the screen. She scooted forward to the edge of the screen and held her hand around it, so Adrien could twine his fingers around hers. He did so after a moment's pause, and then let out a quiet sigh and leaned against the screen. Plagg tried not to gag at the cuteness as Ladybug did the same on the opposite side of the screen.

Gee, if only he had known that all he would need to do to cheer Adrien up properly was to get him some Ladybug cuddle time, he would have begged Tikki to tell her holder to do that _ages_ ago.

"How is the progress with your computer person?" Fu asked. "How soon do you think that he will be ready?"

"Max told us during the akuma battle yesterday that he's figured out all of the security camera stuff," Ladybug reported. "And that the virus is most of the way done, but he just has some finishing touches to put on it. He said he's going to test it on an old computer of his first."

"And he said he would make a new account on that computer first and put some old files on it for the virus to delete, so that he wouldn't be risking deleting anything really important," Chat Noir chimed in. "He's thought of everything, it seems."

Fu smiled. "Very good. I admit, I would not have thought about using those little computer tricks to cover my footsteps. Does he know when it might be done?"

"He said to check in in about a week" Adrien responded. He curled closer to the screen. On the other side, Ladybug mirrored him. "And hopefully he would be done. If not, then he'll just show us how to do the camera stuff."

"Perhaps I should go as well," Wayzz volunteered. "The more eyes you have, the more likely it is that one of us will be able to remember how things are done."

"We could try to get Trixx and Pollen out as well," Fu added. "Having more kwamis with you for the visit with your computer person and for the raid could be incredibly useful. They could search the office for anything else that might be of interest, or act as lookouts, or be the ones to hack into the security camera footage to get it set up for you since they don't show up on camera. I know how to briefly pull them out of their Miraculous- every Holder of the Box does- but that only lasts for a few minutes, and it's just so we can lets kwamis know what is going on before they get to their Chosen."

"Because the Chosens never know what's going on," Plagg interjected with a snigger. " _Ever_."

"They usually know that _something_ is happening," Tikki objected. "But sometimes people are too panicked about that and our sudden appearance to give us all of the information we need to know what exactly to tell them."

"The easiest way to have kwamis out for an extended period of time is to assign them to a new holder," Fu continued, ignoring Plagg. "But if possible, I would rather not do that. More holders means more variables, and it could be difficult to persuade new holders to not be involved in the office raid. I know that it is _possible_ for kwamis to be out for hours or days at a time without a holder, but it is just a matter of finding the spell that makes it possible."

Plagg made a face at the thought of new, inexperienced holders coming in now. They would probably be too excitable and bullheaded and eager to show off and make a good impression by doing more than what they were told to do, leading to mistakes that could tip off Mr. Agreste. Plagg had seen the reactions of new holders joining an established superhero group before in Tibet, and he suspected that it would only be worse now, with how much attention the superhero duo got in Paris. At least those who had been chosen to become Guardians in Tibet had been training for it pretty much their entire lives and it didn't come completely out of the blue when they were picked. The Fox holder that had joined Ladybug and Chat Noir for a fight had apparently been pretty good for a newbie, but that was for an akuma attack, not a special mission. It was easier to recover from an excitement-induced mistake during an akuma attack than it would be when they were facing off against Mr. Agreste.

Clearly Adrien and Ladybug agreed. Plagg could feel waves of what could best be described as _oh gosh no_ radiating off of them. He was pretty certain that if he could see their faces (seriously, did their ridiculous voice-changing masks _have_ to cover their entire face?), they would be screwed up in distaste.

"I will work on that," Fu told them. "I've been working on deciphering that pages that I took pictures of from the book, and I can understand most everything now, though it is slow going most of the time. Now it's just a matter of finding the page that talks about pulling out kwamis for extended periods."

"Wouldn't it most likely be near either the front or the back?" Adrien wanted to know. "That would make the most sense."

"Most likely, and thankfully Ladybug and I took pictures of those sections while we had the book. I will look through those and see what I can come up with. Hopefully I can find the spell and get it to work in time for your meeting with your computer person. If not, then perhaps before the office raid. They could still be helpful there." Fu nodded thoughtfully, fingers already trailing over the tablet with the pictures. "Check in with me before you go over to your computer person, please. We can have a brief meeting beforehand and if the other kwamis are out, then I'll send them with you. If not, then Wayzz will tag along by himself. Does that sound good?"

It had. The meeting had wrapped up quickly, and then Adrien was heading back home, dragging his feet as he did. They had met earlier than normal, and it was still only mid-afternoon.

"We could swing by the farmer's market," Plagg suggested when Adrien turned to head down a side street to take a meandering route home. "I hear the one nearby has a pretty good cheese section."

Adrien turned towards the market, and Plagg grinned. He could just taste the lovely cheese now, creamy and smooth in his mouth...

"Hey, Adrien!"

Adrien turned, and Plagg peeked out of the bag to see who it was that was delaying his trip to the delicious cheese. To his surprise, he spotted the civilian Ladybug hurrying towards Adrien.

"Hey!" Adrien said as she came up. His smile had grown. "How are you?"

Plagg tuned out their conversation as they meandered down the street slowly towards the farmer's market. It would no doubt just be pleasantries and general harmless yabber. Thankfully the girl didn't seem to be in a babbling-in-front-of-Adrien mood (and boy was it going to be interesting to see how _that_ turned out once they did their reveal), so she and Adrien were able to have an actual proper conversation. Adrien probably wasn't in the mood to put up with senseless babbling in his direction at the moment, and Plagg cringed to think of what it could do to their friendship if Adrien just brushed civilian-Ladybug off in a moment of impatience.

Ladybug would probably understand that her babbling was ridiculous and recover after a short bit of sulking. Adrien would probably obsess over the blow-off after the fact, worrying that he had offended her and might lose her friendship. He would spend forever worrying about it- and give Plagg indigestion as he rambled about what he could try to do to fix the friendship.

...maybe he should talk to Tikki about making sure that her Chosen kept talking normally around Adrien. Plagg needed his boy sane, darn it.

They reached the market, and Ladybug stuck by Adrien's side as they wound through the crowd. Adrien seemed rather pleased by her continued presence, even though it would be difficult for him to buy Plagg's cheese with Ladybug there. Plagg sulked about that for a minute- he had rather been hoping to try to persuade Adrien into buying as much cheese as he could, but now he would be lucky if Adrien picked up more than two rounds- before deciding that Ladybug's continued presence was probably better for Adrien in the long run. After the reveal, he would know right away that Ladybug wasn't going to judge him about his father, since she had been hanging out with him even after they figured it out.

Adrien had better appreciate the sacrifices Plagg was making for him, really.

Ladybug giggled at a joke Adrien made, and the boy's entire face lit up. Grinning, he said something else, and the exasperated groan and poorly-hidden grin he got made his face light up even more, smile growing wide as he watched his companion. Marinette pointed out some of her favorite stalls, steering Adrien a little further from the delicious scents of the cheese area.

Plagg made a face and burrowed down in Adrien's bag. His boy would get around to the cheese eventually. Hopefully.

(Surely Ladybug wasn't distracting enough to make Adrien forget?)

The two of them spent forever wandering around the market, looking at all of the different stalls. Ladybug bought something at one of the farmer stalls, tucking her purchase away in a bag she had stashed in her purse. Adrien bought some sort of sandwich from a stall Ladybug recommended, and spent a while exclaiming over how delicious it was. They ran into some other friends from school and spent some time talking.

Finally, _finally_ , when Plagg was starting to feel faint from hunger and his stomach was growling so loudly that he was surprised that the entire market hadn't heard, Adrien stopped at a cheese stall. Plagg peered out from the bag to watch as Adrien looked over the cheeses.

"This one is a really good melting cheese," Ladybug commented, pointing to one of the cheeses. "Sometimes I make baked cheese bread bowls, and that's what I use for the cheese part. It's really tasty."

Adrien was going to have competition for Ladybug's heart, Plagg decided then and there. Baked cheese bread bowls? Sign him up. That sounded _delicious_.

"Are there some that work better than others for that?" Adrien asked. He was standing right next to Ladybug, watching with interest as she started to explain what cheeses worked best for what with baking. He actually looked interested in what she was saying, unlike all of the times he just _ignored_ Plagg when Plagg was trying to teach him the finer details in the differences between double cream and triple cream Brie.

 _Ladybug_ would probably have liked that discussion. She was apparently the type to appreciate cheeses.

Ten minutes later, Adrien had bundled his purchases away in his bag and was wandering back out of the market with Ladybug. They seemed to be heading towards her house, which meant that there was a chance of Plagg getting some cheese bread.

"Adrien! We weren't expecting to see you today!" Ladybug's mother exclaimed from her place by the register. "Did you and Marinette run into each other in the market?" There was a pause- presumably Adrien had nodded- and then she spoke again. "That's lovely! Are you going to hang out here for the rest of the afternoon, then? We would love to have you for dinner."

Adrien perked up. "If it's not any trouble, I'd love to."

Half an hour later, Adrien finally remembered to feed Plagg (or, rather, Plagg finally got the chance to remind Adrien that he was _actually fading away from hunger here_ ). The cheese he had bought had all gotten tucked into the Dupain-Cheng fridge, so Adrien had to creep down and cut a couple chunks while Ladybug was in the bathroom.

"You could have come down and eaten anything else that was sitting out," Tikki said disapprovingly, phasing through Adrien's bag to join Plagg once Ladybug returned upstairs and she and Adrien had started up a game of Mega Strike. "You don't _have_ to have cheese. If you were really that hungry-"

"I had my stomach set on cheese," Plagg responded tartly. "And my taste buds, and my eyes."

Tikki sighed.

"I'm glad they ran into each other," Tikki said softly after a few minutes. "Adrien looks like he's having fun."

"It's the first time in a while I've seen him this relaxed," Plagg admitted. "He's mostly to the point where he's mainly worried about what will happen to him after his father is in jail. It doesn't help that things have changed since Fu's time and a nearby family can't just up and adopt him."

"No, not if there are already plans in place," Tikki agreed. Then she frowned. "Are there? Have you found anything?"

"Nooroo said there aren't," Plagg reported. The butterfly kwami had managed to let him know that much during a quick meeting during lunch a few days back. "Not that Mr. Agreste has made, at least. Nathalie had asked him about it and Mr. Agreste said he didn't plan on losing, so planning for it was pointless."

"Which means Nathalie probably has made plans," Tikki said. At Plagg's startled look, she shrugged. "What? You know it's true."

"I think Fu is really hoping that we can figure out how to recover Adrien's mom," Plagg added instead of admitting that Tikki was probably right. "But the kid is worried that his parents originally wanted to get the Miraculous to use for evil, because Mrs. Agreste was lost when they were looking for the Miraculous in the first place. And if we free her, then she'll be close to the Cat Miraculous."

"He doesn't want to go from living with one supervillain parent to one would-be supervillain parent," Tikki said. She paused as a cheer from Adrien filled the room. Apparently his computer bot had managed to defeat Ladybug's computer bot. Once the duo started a new game, Tikki's attention returned to Plagg. "So have you found out if she was evil, then?"

"How?"

"The journals?" Tikki reminded him. "That's what Fu would use. If you read them now, maybe you can put Adrien's mind to rest."

"Or make him more worried," Plagg said. He wasn't entirely sure if that was actually possible, but knowing Adrien, it probably was. "What if she and Mr. Agreste _did_ want to find the Miraculous just to use them for evil? The kid's gonna be a walking ball of nerves."

Tikki groaned. "Then don't tell him right away! Fu would be better than you at delivering that kind of news anyway. But if there's a chance that you could set Adrien's mind at ease..."

"Then you would take it, and you're telling me that I should, too." Plagg couldn't help groaning. More work, just when he thought that he might be almost done with the running errands and doing most of the footwork for their little investigation. "Fine, fine. But I'm not telling the kid about it, not unless I find something that suggests that his mother wasn't evil. He'd want updates all the time."

They watched their Chosens battle it out onscreen for a few more minutes, and then Tikki spoke up again.

"He deserves better than what he's gotten," Tikki said quietly. "I don't know what his mom is actually like yet, but he deserved a better father."

Plagg could only nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we find out what (might) have happened to Adrien's mother! Not gonna lie, coming up with that backstory was probably one of my favorite parts of writing the story (after, of course, getting to write in Plagg's cheese-obsessed POV).
> 
> There'll be another side story/Outtake posted next, this time from Marinette's POV. It's the only part of the story that I haven't actually finished writing yet (I came up with the idea only relatively recently and then I've been distracted with HTFAM editing and also several IP Coco fanfics) and this is probably one of the worst times of the year for me to not have something pre-written and finished (what with Easter stuff and visiting relatives going on- my family got the bulk of the extended family Easter brunch cooking dumped on us without a ton of warning, which is why this chapter is later than I intended it to be- well, that, a snowstorm, and logging me out most of the way through my final edit of the chapter and making me redo it. But ANYWAY, I haven't been able to post OR write for the past couple days, so I need to try to catch up on that).
> 
> As always, reviews really make my day!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the chapter where I really wished that I had planned better and either combined the outtakes and this into one story or divided the chapter differently, because the office raid is in the middle of the chapter (and Plagg doesn't know what is going on until afterwards, so there's an outtake chapter for that). I marked where the raid starts (when Adrien transforms) for those of you who want to go read the outtake then and then come back for Plagg's POV.
> 
> Enjoy! :)

The next time Adrien and Plagg walked into Fu's office, they came face-to-face with not one or two but _three_ other kwamis.

And none of them were Ladybug's.

"We figured out the spell to get unpaired kwamis out properly," Wayzz announced rather unnecessarily with a wide grin. "Adrien, this is Trixx, and this is Pollen."

"It's nice to meet you," Adrien said politely. Then he frowned and pointed at Trixx. "Hey, I thought the Fox already had a holder. We met her a few weeks back."

Trixx pouted. "That was just _temporary,_ apparently," he whined. "Which is no fun at all. And now I'm back here."

Adrien smacked himself in the forehead. "Oh, _right_. I think I knew that. So you'll be helping us, then?"

"Oh yes! And Master Fu and Wayzz have already caught us up to speed," Pollen assured them. "So we're going to be learning how to hack a computer and alter security camera footage? Why not just bring this boy with us on the raid instead?"

"We gotta be able to make a fast exit if Nathalie comes back earlier than expected," Adrien told them as he headed for his seat on the far side of the screens that Fu already had set up. "...and we aren't actually _telling_ Max who Hawkmoth is. We don't want anyone knowing outside of this circle until after he's been defeated. The chance of someone saying something because they want to 'help' is too high."

"We might end up telling Ladybug's parents right before the final attack," Fu corrected, appearing from around the corner. Plagg perked up when he saw the baked Brie on the plate Fu held. "After all, you'll need somewhere to stay as things are getting figured out afterwards. I get the feeling that they would be happy to help."

Plagg tore his attention off of the mouth-watering cheese for long enough to snigger at the starry-eyed expression Adrien had for several seconds before he shook himself out of it. "But- are you sure that Ladybug would be okay with that? I mean, she doesn't know that I'm _me_ -"

"I'm sure that Ladybug will be fine with it once she knows who you are," Fu told him. "She has already expressed concern about where Adrien will go after Hawkmoth is defeated."

Plagg didn't even need to look to know that Adrien had magically perked up at the information. He would probably hear no end to the gushing about how "my lady is concerned about me!" once they got back home, and it would be _exhausting_.

Plagg needed extra cheese just thinking about it. He dove onto the plate and scooped up a pawful of the oozing goodness.

"I suppose it _would_ be wise to not tell many others," Trixx acknowledged. He draped himself over the screen and watched as Adrien settled down and picked up the black mask next to the cushion he sat on. "So we'll be learning? I suppose it's a good idea to learn the new technology, at any rate. Master Fu has been telling us a little about the new things that have popped up since our last holders, but I suspect that we've barely skimmed the surface."

"Yes, quite a lot has happened in the last couple decades," Fu said with a laugh, setting the cheese down on the low table. Plagg had already made a hole in the crust and was sitting surrounded by melted cheese. "It was quite an adventure trying to keep up with all of it! I know some people have a hard time adapting to change, but I suspected that it would be quite hard to catch back up again if I didn't at least _try_ to make an effort to learn."

There was a light knock on the door, and the two new kwamis went zipping over to investigate. Moments later, Tikki's squeal cut through the air as she pounced on her siblings. Ladybug's laugh followed, before she was shushed by Wayzz.

"Chat Noir has arrived already," Wayzz told her. "Master Fu wants to talk with you two briefly before we go."

There was a shuffle as Ladybug closed the door, crossed the room, and settled on the floor, pulling on her voice-changing helmet as she did. She pushed a bag of treated towards Master Fu, who accepted it graciously. Plagg perked up for a moment- was there anything in there for him?- before slumping back to the table again. She hadn't brought cheese bread.

"Max said that the virus should be nearly ready to go," Ladybug reported. "He told us yesterday after the fight was over."

"Fabulous!" Fu exclaimed. "So we shouldn't all have to meet up again after you're done there. I have the scrolls complete- though Plagg, I will require your assistance for the final touches- and the book is done and in my hands. We can do the office raid soon, unless there are any objections."

His eyes slid towards Adrien. Adrien bit his lip and glanced down towards his lap.

"Would this weekend work best?" Ladybug asked. Plagg cringed- no matter how many of these meetings they had, he would _never_ get used to the sound of those helmets- and tried to bury himself in what remained of the cheese plate. "Instead of a weekday, I mean. Saturday is only two days from now, so we would be more likely to remember whatever Max tells us."

"Yeah," Adrien agreed. "But do you think it would be hard to find someone that could get Mr. Agreste out at the end, then? Like, would he be stuck for the entire day?"

"I'm guessing whoever comes out wouldn't fix the elevator, just get it out enough for him to become unstuck," Fu told Adrien. "They _do_ have on-call people for emergencies on weekends. And that could work in our favor, actually- you wouldn't have to deal with an akuma attack until sometime on Monday if you break the elevator Saturday and he can't get someone in to fix it right away."

Plagg gave a small sigh of bliss as he imagined all of the extra cheese-eating time he could have if Adrien didn't need to spend hours transformed for an Akuma attack. He could properly savor that lovely Brie that he had seen Adrien stick in his hidden mini-fridge instead of inhaling it down like he normally had to do when Adrien needed to transform.

"If there's absolutely no one available, I can slip in and fix it," Tikki piped up from next to him. "I would just undo the rusting that Plagg did. We would probably have to do an akuma fight right afterwards if I do that, but we wouldn't leave anyone trapped for more than a couple hours, even Hawkmoth."

"Couldn't you try to snatch the Miraculous from him while he's stuck in the tunnel?" Pollen wanted to know. "Then we wouldn't have to worry about all of this sneaking around. An ambush attack has worked for us before."

Plagg made a face. That tunnel wasn't anywhere _near_ big enough to do any fighting in. It was barely even big enough for an adult-sized human to turn around in.

"The tunnel is too small, and Hawkmoth would probably just transform if he thought someone was coming after him," Tikki told Pollen. "It's too dangerous. And being stealthy now gives us an advantage for when we attack. We'll be operating entirely on _our_ terms, not being forced into a final fight when we're not ready."

"This is so exciting," Trixx piped up, wriggling on the table eagerly. "It's not often that the kwami play an active role in taking down a supervillain! We've done _some_ spy work, of course, and some busting open locks, but never _this_ level of involvement!"

Plagg wondered if Trixx would feel the same if he were the one always spending her nights roaming around the Agreste mansion trying to see if Mr. Agreste had any other magical artifacts in a place other than the safe or reading through the cramped handwriting in the Agrestes' journals. This whole thing had gotten _very_ old _very_ fast, and he hadn't found anything that important in either the rest of the house or in the journals. Mr. Agreste kept everything in the heavily-guarded study, and he and his wife had focused recording more on the lore about the Miraculous and any possible leads they had rather than on _why_ they wanted the Miraculous, at least in the first journal.

It was boring wading through all of the pages, and it meant that Plagg was missing out on trying to bug Adrien into getting a second bedtime cheese snack, since his chosen was long since fallen asleep by the time Plagg got back to Adrien's room. He couldn't even explain what he was doing and why he deserved extra cheese, which meant that Plagg went woefully uncompensated.

"Yes, it is quite unprecedented," Fu acknowledged. "Most of the time, our opponents are best faced in the battlefield. This time, we have an opponent that is a planner, and we need to change our strategy accordingly."

Plagg yawned loudly as Fu started talking about what he had in mind for the raid on Mr. Agreste's office. He didn't need to listen; after all, his role in that would just to break the elevator, and then to listen for when Mr. Agreste got stuck and let Adrien know. Easy-peasy. Adrien would let him know later when exactly they wanted to start.

Curling up on the empty plate, Plagg snoozed lightly as the other kwamis chattered. He had a full belly, the room was nice and warm, and the scent of cheese surrounded him. He could sleep like this all day and be perfectly content.

So naturally, it couldn't last long. Plagg woke up with Tikki jostling him.

"C'mon, lazybones, it's time to get up. They need to transform."

Plagg groaned and cracked open one eye. Drat, right when he was getting properly comfortable. "Right now? In here?"

"Yes! We're going to sneak out the back door afterwards. That way Ladybug and Chat Noir don't have to try to each find their own place to transform before meeting back up again. Now come on!"

Plagg groaned and floated up into the air towards his Chosen. Apparently he couldn't ever catch a break.

 

* * *

 

For Plagg, the day of the raid dawned bright and early- or, rather, at seven thirty in the morning.

He didn't particularly _like_ being up at such a time. Normally he only got up when Adrien did so Adrien would remember to feed him, and then he went and curled up in Adrien's bag for a nap. For him to get up and _stay_ up at that time was unheard of. But Fu had insisted on getting an early start so that they wouldn't be delayed by an akuma attack, and that meant that Plagg had to stay awake, even after his morning cheese was polished off.

That meant that at eight thirty-seven on the dot, Plagg phased through several walls and rusted out some of the gears in the elevator in a way that was guaranteed to bring the whole thing to a halt and keep it stuck there until a repairman could arrive. Pleased with his work, he phased back out and was rewarded with a large chunk of warmed, gooey Brie.

"Now we just have to wait for Father to try to use it," Adrien said, tucking Plagg into his jacket and heading back towards his room. "He has a meeting right now, but it doesn't end until ten."

"Maybe he won't even try to use it today," Plagg suggested. He licked off the cheese that had gotten smeared around his mouth. "I can't fix the thing if he decides to take the day off, just so you know. Tikki could, though."

"He almost never takes the day off," Adrien grumbled. "I'm looking forward to having nice _uninterrupted_ weeks of school after this is over. I'm missing _way_ too much class right now, and it's all _his_ fault. And speaking of school, I have homework to get done. Come on, Plagg."

Plagg spluttered as he followed Adrien back to his room. " _Really?_ You're gonna do schoolwork right now? How are you even going to focus when the raid could be today? C'mon, let's just watch TV or something."

"Not happening. I'm behind right now in Literature because of that last akuma fight on Friday, and I have to catch up before Miss Bustier throws another pop quiz at us."

 

* * *

 

As soon as the clock hit ten o'clock, Plagg started lurking behind the painting in the atrium, listening for the sound of Mr. Agreste's secret elevator. Much to his disappointment, Mr. Agreste seemed too deeply interested in whatever he was doing on his computer to try going down into his lair.

"Most of the attacks seem to be in the afternoon, anyway," Adrien commented when he fetched Plagg as he headed down for lunch. "And hey, look! Macaroni and cheese, your favorite!"

Plagg perked up.

As usual, Mr. Agreste didn't join them- well, didn't join _Adrien_ \- for lunch, instead having it brought to his office so he could continue working. That meant that Plagg couldn't relax entirely with his delicious bowl (well, technically _Adrien's_ delicious bowl, but he was sharing) of cheesy macaroni goodness. He had to keep listening for the faint sound of Mr. Agreste's nearly-silent elevator whirring to life.

"Master Fu said that everything is ready as soon as my father gets stuck and Nathalie leaves," Adrien whispered. He was clearly starting to get anxious with the wait. "Ladybug isn't transformed, but she _is_ close by."

"Yes, yes, hanging out in the park nearby like you all planned," Plagg finished with a yawn. He really _should_ have taken a nap earlier when he had the chance because now he couldn't sleep until after the raid, but there was no way to go back and fix that now. He had to listen for the elevator. "I _know_."

Once lunch was finished, Adrien headed slowly back up to his room, dragging his feet the entire way. Right before he opened his bedroom door, Plagg perked up.

"Hold on a second," he hissed. "Listen!"

Adrien froze. "I don't hear anythi-"

"Of course you don't! Shush for a moment!" Plagg turned his head, flicking his ears so he caught the quiet _wrrrrr_ of the elevator as it sprung into motion. "He's going to the lair!" Then he paused and sniggered. "Well, he's _trying_ to, at least. Wait for it...wait for it..."

Plagg listened with great satisfaction as the elevator stuttered several times, then ground to a halt. His sensitive ears could pick up the sound of hearty cursing coming from below, so faint and muffled by the walls that Adrien, who was standing next to him, didn't react at all.

"He's stuck," Plagg reported with a hiss, and Adrien startled.

"Really?"

"Really. He should be caught right where the elevator starts heading upwards towards the lair. He'll have to stand on that little circle of floor until someone gets him out." Plagg was rather proud of that placement, actually. It ensured that Mr. Agreste wouldn't simply get off of his little elevator thing and try to fix it himself, or get off and walk back to the office entrance and have Nathalie open the hole for him. It also meant that he would be so stuck that it was possible that Nathalie would have to step out of the office again after coming back from fetching a mechanic to go get lunch or use the bathroom.

So if they didn't get absolutely _everything_ on the first try, they could very well be time to go back for another shot.

Right on schedule, Nathalie's phone rang. She answered and Plagg listened in to their conversation as Adrien texted Fu, who was with Ladybug. They would be moving into position now.

"Sir, the man who built that- he lives an hour outside of Paris!" Nathalie said, alarmed. "It would be faster to find someone in the city-"

Plagg snickered as Mr. Agreste cut her off. Apparently any old repairman in the city simply would not do. He _required_ the man who lived a ways out, probably because he would be less likely to put the pieces together and realize (or care) that Mr. Agreste was Hawkmoth.

"I- I will call him then, sir," Nathalie said, sounding suitably cowed. "And then I'll let you know how soon we can expect him."

There was the sound of the phone being dialed, and then Nathalie spoke again. "Hello? Mr. Angelo? Yes, this is Nathalie Sancoeur, Mr. Agreste's assistant. The floor elevator that you built for him has broken down, and he's trapped- yes, and in the worst spot too, he's in that tube that heads upwards, so he really can't move at all." A pause. "You're nearby? Really? Perfect! Half an hour out- actually, we can come and get you, so that your crew can keep working on the project and keep the van with them. I understand if fixing the elevator properly has to wait for another day, we just need to get Mr. Agreste out."

Plagg suddenly realized that the _we_ Nathalie spoke of might actually just mean the Gorilla. There was a possibility- a _large_ possibility- that she might just stay at her desk and coordinate things from there.

...bugger. Maybe he should have coordinated some sort of electrical failure to try to force her out of the office.

"No, she's coming out," Adrien whispered. Apparently Plagg had been muttering his thoughts out loud. "She loves getting out of the house. She can keep working on the road from her tablet."

Sure enough, Nathalie was grabbing a light jacket from behind the desk and dialing the Gorilla. She shut off the lights in the office and closed the door, pressing some buttons on her tablet to engage the security system.

Plagg smirked. He was sure that everything looked perfectly normal on her system feed, but in reality nothing had engaged. Over the past couple days, he had made sure that every one of the motion detectors was broken _just so_ , so that nothing would register as being wrong. There would still be the camera to deal with, but Trixx was meant to be in charge of that.

"Adrien?" Nathalie called. She turned away from the door and started towards the stairs. "Adrien?"

Adrien gulped and pressed back against his door. He opened it and then closed it so she wouldn't realize that he hadn't been in his room before stepping out into view in the hallway. "Yes, Nathalie?"

"Your driver and I have to go and fetch someone to repair something of your father's," Nathalie told him. "We'll be gone probably an hour. Is there anything you'll need while we're gone?"

Adrien made a show of thinking about it. "I don't think so? I'm just working on some of my reading for class, and then I might work on my Chinese or piano or something."

"Okay. Just stay out of trouble," Nathalie told him, and Plagg muffled a snigger. Adrien was going to be stealing from his father, messing with the security system, and introducing a virus to his father's computer. That was hardly _staying out of trouble_. Still, Adrien _wouldn't_ be running off at all, which was probably what Nathalie was concerned about.

Well. _Chat Noir_ would be leaving the house to go have a short meeting with Ladybug and Master Fu about how the raid had gone afterwards, but that wasn't _running off_ , not really. After all, he would be coming right back.

"Of course," Adrien promised, and then Nathalie was off. Adrien watched the car leave, and then headed back into his room. After all, he could hardly transform in the atrium, since there _was_ a security camera there. As soon as his door closed behind him, Trixx zipped past them, headed for the office.

"You realize that if Nathalie reviews the security stuff, she's gonna be listening for your piano, right?" Plagg demanded as they waited for the signal that Trixx had been successful in looping the video. "And I don't know how we would work that into the camera loop without it sounding weird."

"That's why I said I might work on my Chinese, too," Adrien pointed out. "After we're done with everything, I can go back to my room and put on a tape or something and actually work on my homework. I just wanted to include enough activities that she wouldn't try to call me partway through to make sure I was staying out of trouble. She's assigned stuff for me to do before and then check on it later to make sure I was actually doing that and not off somewhere else. If I say I'm busy already, she won't do that."

Plagg decided to be impressed that Adrien had gotten so good at evading his secretary's tricks, and all on his own, too! Plagg hadn't even needed to encourage him. There were times when his Chosen was so goody two-shoes that Plagg almost despaired, but clearly Adrien wasn't quite as straight-laced as he would lead people to believe.

Adrien's phone beeped, and he whipped it up to read the message. "Trixx gave Fu the signal! It's time to go in! Plagg, transform me!"

 

~~~~~~~~~~

* * *

 

Later that day, once they had gotten to Fu's place, Plagg heard about how the raid had gone. With all of the cameras they had to pass on loop and the security in the office disabled, it was easy enough for the superheroes to go in. Pollen popped the safe open, and Ladybug switched out the scrolls and book out for fakes and snagged the peacock pin. Meanwhile, Chat Noir went straight for his father's computer. Mr. Agreste had actually left it logged in to the superhero research user, and he had several tabs open for research as well.

"It was perfect," Trixx sighed happily as he remembered it. "One of those sites looked a little suspect, so it's not _that_ much of a stretch to think that he might have gotten a virus from that. It took a while to transfer all of the files onto our flash drive, but then no time at all to get the virus going afterwards. Then once Ladybug left, I took the security feeds off of loop. It really wasn't hard at all! I don't know why humans think that it is."

Plagg was of the opinion that Mr. Agreste's security perhaps wasn't _quite_ as top-tier as he believed. Besides, knowing the passwords to get into the security system probably helped make the whole thing easier.

"It is very fortunate that everything worked out so perfectly," Fu commented from his spot at the front of the room. "I worried that Mr. Agreste's assistant might decide not to leave, or- what?" Trixx and Pollen (along with both Adrien and Ladybug) had made a funny little noise.

"Nathalie _did_ come back in while we were there," Ladybug said, and Plagg choked on his cheese. _What?_

"She was a bit surprised to find us there," Adrien chimed in, and even with the distortion from the mask, Plagg could hear the amusement lacing through his Chosen's voice, and a bit of happiness, too. "But even though she knew about Mr. Agreste being Hawkmoth, she wasn't on his side at all. She's being blackmailed or threatened or something- or at least she worries about it, and I don't blame her- into keeping quiet, but she wants him taken down. She was the one who told us about the backup flash drive for the Miraculous files, and one of the scrolls that had been stored in his desk."

"And she made certain that we took the pin," Ladybug added. "And then she asked if she could help with the security footage, but we told her it was under control."

Plagg's eyes bulged as he listened. He _knew_ that he was picking up some weird signals from Nathalie when he hung around the office, but he hadn't expected her to _not_ be working with Mr. Agreste. He _definitely_ hadn't expected that she would actively work against her employer.

...granted, he _had_ definitely heard her lie once or twice about knowing where Adrien was during an akuma attack. He had always assumed that she hadn't wanted to get in trouble for losing Adrien. That was still pretty likely, but maybe she had suspected who Adrien was and had wanted to protect him from his father.

"She was telling them the truth," Pollen confirmed. "I was keeping my feelers out the entire time she was there. She was relieved that they had figured things out."

Fu's eyes were wide as well. "Well! She could be an interesting one to talk to once Hawkmoth is defeated. I'd be interested in learning what she knows about all of the research that Mr. Agreste and his wife did about the Miraculous and why they were looking for the missing Miraculous in the first place."

"She might only know the bare minimum," Wayzz pointed out. "From what I've heard, Hawkmoth is the kind to keep his cards close to his chest. I wouldn't be surprised if she only knew that he's Hawkmoth and he wants to change the moment his wife was lost."

Fu shrugged. "Perhaps. It's worth asking, at least. But for now, we have to turn our attention to defeating Hawkmoth and getting Nooroo back," Fu continued. "I would like to avoid a full-out public battle, if possible, so surprise is key. If we can corner him somewhere public enough that he cannot simply transform and escape, that would be best."

"You want to try for the least amount of media attention," Ladybug guessed. "Will that even work, though, considering how big of a name Mr. Agreste is?"

Fu chuckled. "Not everyone is interested in fashion, Ladybug," he reminded her. "Yes, he is famous in the fashion world, and yes, he is rich, but there are a lot of rich, famous people in Paris. To most people, he will likely not be hugely familiar."

Plagg made a face. He wasn't so sure of that. Mr. Agreste was a _big_ name. He wasn't just a local designer, he was head of a multi-country fashion empire. Maybe not everyone cared a whole lot about fashion, but the name would be recognizable to pretty much everyone in Paris. Maybe the old man wasn't terribly familiar with Mr. Agreste, but somehow Plagg doubted that Fu paid any attention to any celebrities at all.

"Does he ever take the Miraculous off?" Ladybug asked. "If we could just sneak in and take it- or, actually, could the kwamis-?"

Fu shook his head. "The kwamis can't pick up or move the Miraculous most of the time, not even their own. The only exception would be if their Chosen died and the kwami had to keep the Miraculous from being buried with them or otherwise lost forever."

"So one of us would have to sneak in," Ladybug said, automatically glancing towards Adrien and instead looking straight at the screen instead. "If he ever takes the Miraculous off, that is."

"He doesn't," Plagg said immediately. He had spent _forever_ watching Mr. Agreste to try to figure that out. It had been boring, and he hadn't even brought any cheese with him to snack on while he watched. "He keeps it on him at all times if he can. During the day, of course, and then at night he pins it to his sleep shirt. The only time it's not on his person is when he's taking a shower, and unless one of you wants to try slipping in to take it-"

"No!" both Adrien and Ladybug practically shouted in unison. " _Ugh_ , no," Adrien added, shuddering. "I'd rather not be scarred for life, thanks."

Ladybug nodded frantically in agreement.

Fu was clearly trying not to laugh at their reactions. "So we stick with retrieving the Miraculous from him during the day while trying to attract as little attention as possible. Ideas?"

"We could contact the police first, so that they're sitting nearby and can cart him off before any disturbance catches people's attention," Ladybug suggested. "And if we caught him at his house, by the front door, then we could just walk him to the gate and have the police take him without a whole lot of people seeing."

"But is that public enough to keep him from transforming?" Adrien immediately asked. "If he already has one staff member who knows, then maybe he doesn't care about if the others know, because he can just threaten them into silence."

"One person is easier to control than three or five," Ladybug countered. "And the mansion is right next to a park area. If we can somehow get him outside first, then maybe he would feel too exposed. We would just have to station someone inside to keep him from coming back out." She dropped her head into her hands and groaned. "This would work better if there were more of us, but it wouldn't make _sense_ to bring new holders in now. I still think they would get too excited and mess things up."

Fu smiled at that. "Perhaps, yes. But you forget that, even with as old as I am, I _am_ still a Miraculous holder, and I _can_ still transform."

"Master-" Wayzz started to object.

"But perhaps I need to tone down my transformation sequence," Fu added. Wayzz sighed and looked rather resigned. Plagg tried not to laugh. The old man was so tiny now that it would be a miracle if Mr. Agreste even noticed him.

"I still don't understand how that would work," Adrien said. Even with his face hidden, Plagg could tell that he was frowning. "Unless it's Master Fu inside attacking from behind, Fa- er, Mr. Agreste is going to suspect something. And how are we going to get him to come out? Ask him? He never goes outside on his own."

There was a pause.

"Actually, I like that," Fu said slowly. "If we go up and confront him like 'you have something you aren't supposed to have, hand it over', then maybe he'll realize that he's been found out and be intimidated into giving us Nooroo."

The waves of incredulity coming off of Adrien grew. Clearly he couldn't picture his father simply being _intimidated_ into doing anything. Plagg had to agree.

Gabriel Agreste would not be _intimidated_ into anything when the people doing the intimidating were two teens and a tiny little man dressed as s turtle. However, if there was an actually _intimidating_ Turtle...

"Uh, no," Plagg said before anyone else could chime in, because _he_ had just had a fabulous idea and he wanted to get the credit for it. "You're about as intimidating as a kitten now, old man. Lend someone the Miraculous for the day. I recommend Ladybug's dad, he's big enough to intimidate anyone that doesn't know him."

Adrien spun around immediately to stare at Plagg. Or at least Plagg was _assuming_ his Chosen was staring. He couldn't tell for sure, because Adrien was still wearing that ridiculous helmet. "You know who her dad is?!"

"Kid, I learned who Ladybug is during the Dark Owl attack, remember?" Plagg reminded him. How had Adrien forgotten? Plagg had had to put up with Adrien sighing over how Ladybug's untransformed hand had brushed his own for an entire _week_ after that particular akuma attack. "Did you hit your head or something?"

"I know that!" Adrien protested, his voice starting to go a bit high-pitched and squeaky. "But knowing who Ladybug is and knowing who her dad is are two different things!"

On the far side of the screen, Ladybug was giggling.

"Plagg has a point," Fu said. The expression on his face suggested that he hadn't ever expected to say that. Plagg resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at him. "I am...perhaps less intimidating than I used to be. Ladybug, do you think that you dad would be willing...?"

"I think Papa would help," Ladybug said immediately. "Even if he doesn't know that I'm Ladybug. He might be a little hesitant at first since he doesn't like fighting, but he always talks about how Hawkmoth is a bully and how he wishes he could do something for- well, for us."

Fu looked pleased. "Fabulous. We'll approach him once we have more of our attack planned out. Plagg, do you have any other ideas? Any suggestions for a temporary Fox or Bee, maybe, or should we simply stick with three?"

Plagg blinked up at Fu slowly as he yawned widely. All of this planning stuff was making him tired. And hungry, of course. "No. I don't do work. I don't do thinking. The Turtle thing was just _obvious_."

"Do we have to have to have more Miraculous holders on top of that?" Adrien asked. He didn't sound even remotely convinced. "I mean, if we have to train in a whole slew of people, even if they're just temporary, that could be a lot of work."

"The Turtle honestly takes very little explanation," Fu said. His lips twitched up in a small smile. "It is meant to be a protector and a tank. There are some specific attacks and special defenses it has, but they take a fair amount of training to master and really, the basics are all we should need."

"And if we had a temporary Fox, they wouldn't even have to fight," Trixx added eagerly. "They could use Mirage to make illusions of Ladybug and Chat Noir to stand with Ladybug's father, so you two could be hiding in the house and Mr. Agreste won't even think to expect an attack from behind. And I could have my temporary Fox back for real this time. Please? Please? Can I?"

Tikki made a face at that. "I think the previous temporary Fox might be a little too excitable for this. I know she did a great job before," she added before Trixx could argue. "And if we need a permanent Fox for whatever reason afterwards, then I think we should _definitely_ go with her. But I think she might be really likely to want to charge in and be part of the proper fight herself here, or want to help with akuma attacks between getting the Miraculous and the final attack, and if she met Master Fu then she might get distracted with asking questions. We need someone who is a little less headstrong and risk-taking, I think. She's a little _too_ used to the idea that superheroes can't get hurt, when they could be here."

"I agree with that," Ladybug said. "As great as it was to fight alongside her last time, she _did_ take some time to focus after she transformed. And she already takes so many risks during normal akuma attacks..."

"Wait, who was the temporary holder last time?" Adrien asked. He glanced at Fu. "Am I even allowed to know?"

Fu thought about it. "Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt. After all, she doesn't have the Miraculous now, and if she receives it afterwards, the need for secrecy won't be so great. Ladybug?"

"Rena was the Ladyblogger," Ladybug said. "Alya Cesare."

" _Really?_ Oh, no wonder she was so excited about it!" Adrien paused. "...but _yeah_ , you're right. Doesn't she, uh, know Mr. Agreste's son? That might make her more likely to want to jump in to the fight."

Fu nodded. "Then we will have to pick another. Perhaps we should ask your mother, Ladybug. I'm sure she would be around when we ask your father to be a temporary holder and so she would find out about you and about me anyway. That way, we can limit the spread of knowledge for now."

Trixx pouted.

"Why are we only considering people from my family?" Ladybug wanted to know. "I mean, I'm sure Mama and Papa would be willing, and that makes sense about not letting a lot of people know about us, but what about Chat Noir's family? Surely there has to be someone who- why are you _laughing_?"

Plagg was absolutely _howling_ with laughter. Wayzz was snickering. Tikki, Pollen and Trixx had all started to giggle. Even Adrien had cracked a small smile.

"I'm sure it will become obvious to you eventually," Fu assured her, though there was a hint of laughter in his voice as well. "But for now, we'll plan to stick with your family."

Even though he was still doubled over snickering, Plagg couldn't miss the confusion coming from Ladybug. It turned into something closer to worry as she turned to look in her partner's direction, and she scooted closer to the screen separating her from Adrien. A hand snuck around the edge.

Adrien's smile was visible even under the helmet as he reached forward to twine his fingers with hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Ladybug. No, Chat Noir's family would not be a good choice for temporary holders. Not even close.
> 
> As always, reviews make my day! :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the long break between postings- it turned out that I only could go into town when there was a Need instead of just "oh we go in on a regular basis" because we didn't want to leave the campsite/station unattended if we could help it (and I was the only other person there besides the head person), and then when I went in it was either shower OR have internet, not both.And I meant to update once I got back to my boss's house before leaving, and then at the airport and once I got home, but...I was busier than expected.
> 
> So, without further ado, chapter 9!

Plagg was being worked harder than ever, and he wasn't even being properly compensated for it. Whenever they could fit it into their schedules, Adrien and Ladybug were going over to Fu's- sometimes together, sometimes individually- to try to figure out how to access the new powers that Fu had decided could come in handy for them during the final attack. Puzzling things out involved a lot of transforming, detransforming, and consultation with both Master Fu and the kwamis, with only minimal Camembert offered for refueling. He wasn't even being given enough time to digest his food in peace.

It was taking _forever_. Or, well, maybe it was just a week, but it _felt_ like forever. Besides, Plagg had never concerned himself _too_ much with silly human constructs of time.

"Why are we even bothering with this?" Plagg complained as Adrien prepared to transform for the fifth time in an hour. "You already have a plan pretty much laid out for the final battle, and you'd only _really_ need your original powers for that. I could be sleeping right now. Or eating cheese, since I've been _deprived_ of it the last few days!"

"We cannot predict everything about the final battle," Fu told Plagg. "Perhaps Mr. Agreste _will_ try to transform and fight, and then we will have to have more tricks at our disposal. Perhaps not. It is safer for them to be prepared."

Plagg scowled as he was sucked back into the ring.

When he wasn't at Fu's place, Plagg was expected to keep an ear open around the house to make sure that Mr. Agreste hadn't noticed any differences between the old artifacts and the new ones. He was also supposed to try to talk to Nooroo more, though why he had to do _both_ was beyond Plagg.

Surely Nooroo would notice if Mr. Agreste spotted anything wrong with his precious collection of ill-gotten Miraculous memorabilia. After all, the man knew how to throw a hissy fit over the smallest things.

And on top of that, Mr. Agreste was stepping it up with his akumas. They were coming more often than usual, it seemed, or maybe it was just that the fights themselves took longer to finish. Plagg had tried retaliating by making Mr. Agreste's elevator break again, this time grinding to a stop only seconds after starting up, but afterwards Fu had ordered a halt to further breaks for the moment, concerned that too much might make Mr. Agreste suspicious. Adrien and Ladybug would just have to deal with the momentary uptick in attacks like normal.

Plagg was looking forward to when this was over and he could just nap and eat all day. Lately there had been _far_ too much researching and having to be _comforting_ and paying attention to his surroundings. It was all too much working and not enough lazing around in a warm sunbeam with a large chunk of Camembert at his side.

And speaking of this being all over, Plagg wanted to know why it was taking so darn long. How many times did Adrien have to practice activating his dialed-back Cataclysm, and how many times did Ladybug have to practice the spell that gave her two yo-yos instead of one?

"So when are we asking Ladybug's parents to be temporary holders?" Plagg demanded at their next meeting. "And when are we doing the reveal? Don't tell me that we're waiting until after Hawkmoth is defeated. That would be stupid." He glared at Master Fu, daring him to disagree. It was _obvious_ that Adrien would need the full support of his partner to get through the final battle with Hawkmoth.

"If we're going to involve my parents, a reveal is bound to happen anyway," Ladybug agreed. Plagg watched as her hand snaked around the screen to find Adrien's and squeeze it lightly. She had been doing that more and more often, ever since she had heard that Chat Noir's home life was maybe not great, and of course Adrien wasn't going to reject the small comfort. "And there isn't _that_ much time between now and when we want to try to recover the Miraculous. What are the odds that we'll just _happen_ to get an akuma with secret-revealing powers or something?"

"See, Ladybug agrees with me," Plagg said immediately. He _knew_ that Adrien was likely to be miserable after this particular meeting, and having someone who understood what he was going through to hang out with would help. Besides, Plagg wasn't sure how many more pranks and misfortunes he could play on Mr. Agreste to cheer Adrien up before he either started getting suspicious or started taking it out on the household staff and Adrien.

"As do I," Tikki chimed in. Wayzz nodded.

"Okay then, I suppose a reveal is in order," Fu said. He was smiling slightly. "Take off your helmets and go meet your partner."

Ladybug yanked off her voice-changing helmet immediately, dropping it to the side as she scooted forward. Adrien pulled his own helmet more slowly, biting his lip as he did. He looked oddly nervous for someone who had wanted to know Ladybug's identity for so long. Plagg watched as Adrien closed his eyes, taking in a nervous breath.

Ladybug had no such reservations. She peered curiously around the screen and then her eyes widened.

" _Adrien!_ "

Adrien yelped as Ladybug _pounced_ on him, knocking him backwards onto the floor in a hug. Seconds later, there was a surprised "Marinette?" followed by an incredibly excited "Marinette! Hey!"

...oh, right. _That_ was her name. Plagg probably should have known that, in all honestly.

Plagg rolled his eyes as Adrien practically wrapped himself around his friend, beaming the entire time. Marinette didn't seem at all bothered as she hugged him back. Tikki was spinning around them, chirping happily.

"I take it that you're happy with your partner?" Fu asked, clearly amused as Adrien flopped on top of Marinette. "You two seem quite close."

"We've been friends for most of the year," Adrien managed as he and Marinette untangled themselves and sat up again. Marinette was practically in Adrien's lap as they settled back down. "And we've been even better friends recently, and of course we're, like, super-friends as Ladybug and Chat Noir."

Marinette actually _giggled_. "Super-friends?"

Adrien just grinned at her.

"I'm glad to hear that," Fu said cheerfully. "It'll be good for you to have some support now, more than ever."

For once, Adrien didn't seem bothered by the reminder that they would be getting his father arrested soon. Instead, he nodded cheerfully. "Yeah! And I love Marinette's parents, too. They're super-nice. I won't mind them knowing about me at all."

"And they'll be willing to have you stay with us after, y'know, everything," Marinette added, winding her arm around Adrien's. "I know they will. We'll find somewhere in the house for you to stay, even if it means dividing my room up."

Adrien looked absolutely moved. Plagg made a face. If Adrien stayed with Marinette at all, then Plagg would no doubt be subjected to hearing endless flirting between the two. On the other hand, Adrien wouldn't be able to spend hours waxing poetic about "his Lady" if she was within hearing range, which was an absolute relief.

Once the meeting was over, Adrien stayed glued to Marinette's side as they waved good-bye to Fu and headed for the door.

"Do- do you want to hang out for a bit?" Adrien asked somewhat nervously as they stepped out of Fu's building. "I mean, I would understand if you're busy, but..."

"Do you want to do a homework-video game hangout?" Marinette suggested. "Then we can be responsible _and_ have some fun."

Plagg groaned loudly. "You two are _boring_. Can't we do something else, like go to the grocery store and get cheese? Or go to the movies and get popcorn?"

"I'm going to go with the responsible option," Adrien said, making Plagg groan. Of _course_ his boy would go with the boring thing. The boring, _non-cheesy_ thing.  _And_ the non-popcorn-y thing. "I have some homework that I need to finish, _especially_ if we're going to be talking to your parents soon. I'll probably be too nervous about how that's going to go to get anything done that day."

" _You'll_ be nervous? I'm probably going to be a nervous wreck!" Marinette countered as they rounded the corner and headed up the next street side-by-side. "I'm just really hoping that they don't try to stop me from being Ladybug."

"I thought you said that they supported the superheroes!"

"Yeah, but that's because they don't know who we are! I'm worried that they'll get hung up on the fact that I'm in danger a lot," Marinette said. "Though hopefully the fact that we're going to take down Hawkmoth and stop the akumas will help."

"I'm sure your parents will be proud of you," Adrien assured her, fingers brushing up her arm. His eyes had turned soft and gooey and _gross_ as he looked at Marinette. "They might be worried, but they can't deny that pretty much the entire city looks up to you, Bugaboo."

From inside of Adrien's coat, Plagg pulled a face. _Ugh_. The flirting out of costume was starting already. And it was actually working, too. Ladybug- er, Marinette- was blushing.

"They'll be proud of you too, you know," Marinette said quietly. Plagg peered out of Adrien's jacket to see her reaching over to take his hand. He gagged quietly when he saw Adrien turning pink again and gazing at his friend with a sickeningly soft look on his face, and then promptly stopped when he spotted Tikki glaring at him from Marinette's purse.

And now he had to actually _behave_ in the face of their Chosens' ooey-gooey-mushiness. Either that, or sleep and risk missing any cheesy treats that his Chosen might pass his way.

A few more giggles came from up above as the duo bantered, and Plagg buried himself in Adrien's inner jacket pocket. His decision had been made, it seemed. No amount of cheese was worth having to listen to _that_ for however many hours Adrien was planning to hang out with Marinette.

 

* * *

 

"I was worried that Ladybug would treat me differently after she found out that I'm Hawkmoth's son," Adrien admitted as he dug in the fridge to pull out a chunk of Camembert for Plagg to take after they were summoned back to the mansion. "But it's _Marinette_ , and she's been spending even more time with me than normal since she found out that Father is Hawkmoth. She hasn't treated me differently at all." Then his face took on a dreamy quality, and even burying his face in his cheese didn't keep Plagg from hearing Adrien. "And she's so brave, and kind, and sweet, and talented, and of _course_ she's Ladybug, she's _perfect."_

...maybe Plagg should have considered the possibility of this happening before supporting the idea of an identity reveal. Something told him that Adrien was going to be doing a _lot_ more gushing than usual now. What he had had to deal with earlier was just the tip of the iceberg. And unlike earlier, he wouldn't be able to just sleep through all of the disgusting gushing and flirting. He could escape some of it like that, but not all of it. He would end up missing out on too much cheese if he tried to avoid _all_ of the gushing.

"And she said that she would be willing to give up part of her room so I could stay there!" Adrien practically swooned onto his bed as Plagg tried and failed to block him out by sacrificing chunks of cheese to use as earplugs. "I mean, I know her parents would have to agree, but just imagine how amazing that would be! I wouldn't even mind having only a small space to myself. Marinette's parents are always so welcoming, and the whole place smells amazing, and there's actually people around who care about me, and-" Adrien seemed absolutely breathless. "Even if I end up only going over there during the day, I just love being there."

Plagg just made a _mmm-hmm_ noise and tried to block out Adrien's voice by burying himself in Adrien's garbage can under a few Camembert wrappers. It didn't work.

"Her parents are always so nice, and they always have awesome snacks for us, and they actually look _happy_ to see me there." Adrien seemed stuck on how much Marinette's parents liked him, which made sense. He didn't get that same happy welcome when he came back to his own home. "I'm glad that they'll be the ones to know about Mari and I. Like, I bet that they'll be worried about us being in danger and all, but I bet they'll be supportive after they get over that."

"So you're going to go over there again?" Plagg asked, tugging the chunks of cheese out of his ears as he finally gave up on blocking out his Chosen. It seemed rather fruitless, after all. He considered the former cheese earplugs for a second, then shrugged and popped them in his mouth. There was no point in wasting perfectly good Camembert, after all.

Adrien perked up. "Yeah, tomorrow! And then the day after that is when Master Fu is going to come over and talk to Marinette's parents about becoming temporary holders, so I'll be going over there after basketball and hopefully staying for dinner after Fu drops by."

"Your other friends are going to notice if you're suddenly attached to Marinette," Plagg pointed out, mostly because Adrien was going starry-eyed again. "And if you're over there all of the time..."

"It's safer at Marinette's house than it is here," Adrien pointed out. "And if we're together when an akuma attacks, then we can go together. And who cares if they notice? That's hardly a bad thing."

Clearly trying to keep Adrien from being a starry-eyed lovesick idiot was a losing battle. Sighing, Plagg dove back into his trashcan cheese-wrapper nest.

It was going to be a _long_ evening.

 

* * *

 

Before they knew it, the day for Marinette's parents to be told about the Miraculous had arrived. Marinette had been increasingly nervous all day, and Plagg had been kept awake throughout Adrien's entire basketball practice by the frequent buzzing of incoming texts from Marinette. Adrien had cracked a smile when he was done with practice and found how many texts she had sent him.

"I'm glad that I'll be with her when Master Fu is there," Adrien told Plagg as he left the school building and headed across the street to the bakery. Plagg had opted to ride in Adrien's jacket, mostly because his bag smelled like sweaty teenaged boy and if he had to be in that bag for longer than a few seconds, he would lose his appetite. "It sounds like she's practically bouncing off of the walls already, and there's another hour and a half yet before he's supposed to arrive."

"Great, you can both be nervous together," Plagg snarked. He sniffed as Adrien pushed open the bakery's door. "Say, did you forget to put on more deodorant after practice? You smell."

"I'm sorry, we're clo- oh, Adrien, dear!" Plagg heard Sabine exclaim, and then seconds later Plagg was being squished as she hugged Adrien. "Go on up, Marinette is waiting for you. Tom and I will be joining you in a few minutes, once we finish cleaning and closing the bakery for the day. Oh! Let me pack a bag for you first. We were busy today so we don't have _quite_ as many leftovers as usual, but we still have a few croissants and some cookies."

Plagg drooped. No cheese bread? What was the point of coming over if there wasn't any cheese bread?

"Thank you, Madam Cheng," Adrien said politely. A moment later, he was being shooed upstairs.

"No cheese bread?" Plagg complained as Adrien practically sprinted up the stairs. " _Aww."_

"I'll buy some during lunch tomorrow," Adrien promised. He skidded to a halt in front of Marinette's living room door. "Wait, were you serious about me smelling before? Hang on a second, I gotta smell-"

Adrien's elbow was raised and his nose was halfway to his armpit when Marinette whipped the door open. "Adrien? Hey!"

Adrien hastily snapped his arm back down to his side (Plagg snickered) and flashed a wide (if slightly maniacal and forced) grin at his partner. "Hi! I, uh- I was just about to knock?"

Marinette looked a little puzzled. Tikki was giggling.

"Do you have cheese?" Plagg asked when it became obvious that Adrien was floundering hopelessly. He popped out of Adrien's jacket to perch on his head. "There wasn't any cheese bread left, and we ran out of cheese after the attack earlier."

"I don't know," Marinette told him, and Plagg pouted. How could anyone not know if they had cheese or not at any given time? It was a travesty. "But we can check."

Plagg perked up and floated after her as she led the way into the apartment. He glanced back to see Adrien hastily sniffing his armpits before following, and Plagg smirked.

Adrien hadn't smelled bad at all. Plagg just enjoyed freaking him out.

"I think the Cheddar is being reserved for dinner tonight," Marinette said, bringing Plagg's attention back to her. "But we do have cottage cheese, if you want?"

 _Cottage cheese?_ It was bland. Boring. _Bleh._ But it _was_ cheese. "I suppose."

Marinette spooned up a bit of the cottage cheese for Plagg to have while Adrien brought his bag upstairs to Marinette's room. As he trotted back down the stairs, his stomach growled. Loudly.

"Maybe we should have a snack before dinner," Marinette suggested. "Anyone interested in popcorn?"

"I like popcorn," Plagg said immediately, popping out of his licked-clean bowl and watching as Marinette got out a pan and some oil. "Make it nice and buttery!"

"Popcorn would be great," Adrien agreed. "Anything I can do to help?"

Marinette nodded and pointed to a high cupboard. "Yeah, we keep the kernels up there. I can't quite reach them without a chair, but..."

"But I can, because I'm not short like you," Adrien teased. Plagg watched with amusement as Marinette swatted at his side, then he turned his attention to the pan Marinette was heating up. It didn't take long for the first batch of popcorn to come off of the stove and get poured into a bowl. Plagg vibrated with excitement as Marinette poured in the butter and salt as Adrien shook the bowl, and then zipped past Adrien as soon as he set the bowl down to dive into the bowl for a piece. He hummed his appreciation as soon as the popcorn hit his tongue. "It's tasty. The only thing that could _possibly_ make it better would be cheese, of course."

Marinette paused in her pouring of the next batch of kernels into the hot pan. "There's cheese powders that you can put on popcorn, you know. We have a white cheddar one, I think."

Plagg perked up immediately. Cheesy popcorn? That sounded _amazing_. This whole knowing-identities thing wasn't so bad after all.

Ten minutes later, they were all settled back in Marinette's room with their popcorn. Plagg had an entire bowl all to himself, drenched in butter and coated thoroughly with the cheese powder. And it was _divine_. By the time Fu showed up, Plagg was in a cheese-induced haze on Marinette's desk, unable (well, mostly unwilling) to be disturbed.

"How'd it go?" Plagg slurred sleepily a while later as Adrien and Marinette clambered back up into the room after their little meeting. He had been vaguely aware of Adrien briefly trying to wake him up before they went down, but his Chosen had apparently (correctly) decided that it was a lost cause.

"It went _really_ well," Marinette said, beaming. "My parents had agreed to help before Master Fu even mentioned that I was Ladybug. They were worried, of course, but Adrien was right in thinking that the fact that we've got a plan to take Hawkmoth down would help."

"We're going to have dinner in five minutes," Adrien told Plagg as Marinette gathered up the popcorn bowls. He looked happy, and Plagg had to wonder how many hugs he had gotten from Marinette's parents. "And we'll be having a dinner here with Master Fu the night before we get the Butterfly miraculous back, just for last-minute planning and so Marinette's father can try transforming."

"We decided on this weekend," Marinette added on. "My mom got the Fox miraculous and Trixx earlier and already transformed once. We thought maybe we would do next weekend instead to give her more time to transform a few more times and work on her Mirage before facing Mr. Agreste, but she said she would work really hard on it with the days we have left so we could end things sooner."

Adrien looked simultaneously ill and glad about that. Plagg suspected that he was glad that things would be over soon, at least, and that he wouldn't have to keep risking life and limb fighting akumas, but he was probably concerned about the fallout once his father was in jail. He was potentially also not looking forward to putting his father in jail, but Plagg didn't understand why. Mr. Agreste hadn't acted like a father for- well, Plagg didn't know how long, but it had been _ages,_ at least. In Plagg's opinion, Adrien shouldn't care about his father anymore at all.

Humans were so _weird_ sometimes with their strange attachments to others who weren't worth their time.

"We're going downstairs now to help my parents get things ready," Marinette added. "If you want to come down, you can. Tikki is chatting with my dad right now."

Plagg considered it. He could stay up here and nap, or he could go downstairs and see if he could squirrel away any more cheese. He probably wouldn't be able to eat it right away- he was pretty stuffed still from the cheesy popcorn- but it never hurt to have a stash.

He followed Adrien back downstairs. There, he found a fox cooking dinner while Tom arranged chairs and set out place mats and silverware at the table. Plagg sniffed and then pouted.

There wasn't any cheese.

Movement caught his eye, and Plagg glanced over to see Ladybug and Chat Noir standing in one corner of the room, apparently talking. Plagg looked again and saw that the two "superheroes" were ever-so-slightly translucent, their movements were a little stilted, the edges were a bit blurred, and they were making wispy little sounds instead of actual words. They were a Fox mirage, and beginner ones at that.

Marinette's mother would surely get better at it quickly, especially with focus, but _maybe_ they should consider Tom as the Turtle taking the lead with the talking. That was usually the hardest part to master.

At most, Marinette's mom would be able to imitate Ladybug's voice, since she would be most familiar with it.

Soon enough they were sitting down to dinner. Sabine had detransformed after her timer ran out, making her illusions dissolve and vanish, and Trixx stole a hunk of bread before flying over to join Tikki and Plagg. Even in his drowsy state, Plagg could sense the curiosity coming from Marinette's parents.

"How did you discover Hawkmoth's identity?" Sabine asked after several minutes of quiet eating. She glanced towards Adrien. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but..."

"No, actually, it's pretty funny," Adrien said. He flashed a small grin. "Plagg decided to dress up in a costume made to look like the Butterfly kwami, Nooroo, so he could sneak into the kitchens for cheese without being mistaken for a rat if he got spotted. My father had injured his eye that day and could barely see, so he mistook Plagg for his kwami."

"I had been _so_ confused about how they had accidentally discovered that Hawkmoth was Mr. Agreste before I found out that Chat Noir is Adrien," Marinette added with a grin at Adrien. "Tikki was still trying to keep me from guessing my kitty was Adrien, so she suggested that Chat Noir just lived nearby and Plagg couldn't find enough cheese in his house, so he broke into the mansion kitchen instead."

Adrien's lips twitched in amusement and he tried to hide it by taking a quick bite of food.

"So I had this weird mental picture of Plagg dressing up for the express purpose of breaking into neighboring houses for more cheese," Marinette finished. "And I was super-puzzled about how he just _happened_ to go into the Agreste mansion on the _one_ day that Mr. Agreste just happened to be having eye problems."

Marinette's parents laughed. Adrien swallowed his bite of food and grinned.

"By the way, Plagg, don't you go getting any ideas about breaking into neighboring houses for more cheese," Adrien added. "I give you _plenty._ "

Plagg just sniffed. He wouldn't consider that anyway- there was plenty of cheese in the Agreste kitchen, after all. As long as the chefs kept the fridge well-stocked, he would behave.

Well, as much as he ever behaved, anyway.

 

* * *

 

For the rest of the week, Adrien (and by extension, Plagg) spent as much time as he could manage at the Dupain-Cheng's house. Sometimes he and Marinette manned the front counter so Sabine could have more time to practice her Mirage so it would look solid and believable by the time they approached Mr. Agreste.

Plagg could tell that Adrien's behavior was starting to catch Nathalie's attention- it would be hard for it _not_ to, since Adrien had to ask her permission to have dinner over at Marinette's house, and even to go over to his partner's house in the first place. He was willing to bet that she was going to ask for some sort of explanation soon, and Adrien was likely going to flounder his way through that conversation.

And he was right.

"You've been going over to this girl's house every day this week," Nathalie commented after Adrien asked for permission to go to the Dupain-Cheng's house for lunch and dinner on Thursday following breakfast. Her sharp eyes scanned Adrien's expression. "...any particular reason why?"

Adrien froze.

"Adrien?" Nathalie prompted.

"Just say that she's your girlfriend," Plagg hissed from Adrien's pocket. He didn't want Mr. Agreste hearing about Adrien avoiding the house and suddenly becoming suspicious. If Adrien claimed a girlfriend, he would probably investigate Marinette to make sure that she was "suitable"- or, rather, he would try to. Considering that he would likely be in jail in two days, it wouldn't really matter that much. Adrien flushed red at the suggestion, and Plagg sighed.

 _Hopeless._ His Chosen was completely _hopeless_. Plagg was pretty certain that once Adrien and Marinette finally got their heads on straight and started dating, they would be ridiculously blushy and soppy and of course, Plagg would be forced to sit through it all.

_Blech._

"Adrien?" Nathalie prompted again. She looked utterly baffled by Adrien's red cheeks. "You've been spending a lot of time at your classmate's house. Any particular reason why?"

" _Girlfriend!_ " Plagg hissed again, kicking Adrien's chest. Adrien jumped.

"Girlfriend!" Adrien blurted out in an _embarrassingly_ high-pitched voice. Nathalie's eyebrows shot up, and Adrien shrunk in on himself slightly and cleared his throat. "I- I mean. She's my girlfriend, and her family is really, really nice. And they've invited me over."

Plagg was almost proud of Adrien for that. Actual words, in an actual sentence, in a fairly normal tone. All he had to work on was _not_ squeaking out nonsense first.

Nathalie nodded, face back to expressionless normal. "I see. And are you sure that you aren't encroaching? You've been there for most meals this week."

"They always invited me first," Adrien protested immediately. Plagg could feel some uncertainty radiating off him, though, and he rolled his eyes. The Dupain-Chengs didn't mind Adrien eating at their house at all, and in fact Plagg could tell that they quite enjoyed having him over. There was no need for any uncertainty.

"I'll have the chef prepare a fruit basket or something that I can bring over," Nathalie decided. "Some meats, maybe. Just so they aren't spending a ton more on grocery bills with feeding you and so I can meet your girlfriend's parents. You said that your girlfriend is the Dupain-Cheng girl, right? From the bakery?"

Adrien just nodded stiffly. Plagg rolled his eyes. Did he have to do _everything_ around here?

"She won the bowler hat competition!" Plagg hissed. Adrien repeated him robotically, and Nathalie looked impressed.

"A talented girl, then. Though-" Something seemed to occur to Nathalie, and she frowned briefly. "Hm. Perhaps I'm thinking of someone else. I can't go over this morning because we have a meeting, but I should have time this afternoon." She glanced briefly at her tablet and frowned. "You should get going, Adrien. School starts soon."

Adrien obediently got going, though his face was still flaming.

Plagg napped throughout the morning, occasionally waking up to snack on the cheese Adrien had packed. He properly roused himself when the bell rang for lunch, and looked up to find Adrien's face pink.

What he had missed Plagg didn't know, but he didn't really care. Marinette had probably flirted with Adrien or something, or maybe Nino had teased Adrien about the amount of staring at Marinette that he was doing.

Adrien grew increasingly fidgety as he and Marinette headed over to the Dupain-Cheng's bakery. It was almost as though he was uncomfortable, which didn't make any sense. He _loved_ the Dupain-Chengs.

 _Meh_. He wasn't going to worry about it. Adrien was weird sometimes. Besides, Tom had cheese bread for him.

"You've been fidgeting since you got here, son," Tom said with a laugh as he handed sandwiches to Adrien and Marinette. "Something on your mind?"

Adrien turned even redder and slouched in his chair, avoiding Tom's gaze. "I, uh..."

Marinette turned and fixed Adrien with an interested look. Adrien's gaze darted away from her and he practically fidgeted right off of his chair.

"Nathalie was asking me about why I was spending all of my time over here this morning!" Adrien finally blurted out after several seconds of silence. Suddenly something clicked in Plagg's mind. _Aha._ So _that_ was what he was so concerned about.

 _Dork_.

"And I didn't want to make her suspicious," Adrien continued, his voice slowly inching higher and higher in pitch and words spilling out faster and faster as he talked. "And Plagg told me to just tell her thatMarinetteandIweredating."

The last few words came out in such a rush that it clearly took Marinette and her father several seconds to decipher it. When they did, Marinette turned bright red and Tom let out a booming laugh.

"If you wanted to date her, all you had to do was ask. I doubt she would say no."

Now both teens were flushed red.

"Nathalie is going to be coming over with a basket of food this afternoon," Plagg volunteered helpfully when it became apparent that both Adrien and Marinette were apparently incapable of forming words at the moment. "Because Adrien's been eating over so often. And she wanted to make sure that Adrien wasn't overstaying his welcome."

Tom scoffed at that. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm pretty certain that it would be impossible for Adrien to overstay his welcome."

That got a smile from Adrien.

"But I'll make sure to tell Sabine that you're apparently dating so that we don't accidentally tip Nathalie off by acting confused," Tom continued, sounding quite pleased with himself when the teens looked flustered. Apparently he took great pleasure from teasing Adrien and Marinette. Plagg approved.

"What did Nathalie say about it when you told her that we were d-dating?" Marinette asked after Tom had gone back downstairs, humming merrily. She looked a bit anxious.

Adrien shrugged. The pink hadn't completely faded from his cheeks. "She was surprised, I think. I don't know. It's hard to tell with Nathalie sometimes."

Plagg could pick up a spike of anxiety from Marinette, but to her credit, she didn't outwardly react at all.

An akuma attack took up the majority of the rest of their lunch period (Plagg mourned having to leave his cheese bread behind, even though they would be back for it after classes were over), and then they were back at school.

Boring? Yes, maybe. But it gave him plenty of time to savor the gorgeous chunk of goat cheese that Tom had given him.

Plagg was just dozing off when school let out for the day. He perked up- he could finish his cheese bread once they got back over to Marinette's house!- and waited impatiently as Adrien talked and joked with Nino at his locker. They headed outside _excruciatingly_ slowly, discussing something that had happened in class earlier in the day.

Plagg pouted from his place inside of Adrien's bag. As much as he wanted to prod Adrien in the side to get him to hurry up because the abandoned cheese bread was calling Plagg's name, he didn't. Adrien needed the sense of normalcy right now.

Tikki would be _so_ proud of Plagg right now, he was positive. Here he was, putting his Chosen's need for company over his own need for cheese.

"Uh, is that Nathalie?" Plagg heard Nino ask, and Adrien stiffened. Plagg peered out of Adrien's bag. Sure enough, Nathalie stood right outside of the bakery, and she was talking to Marinette. Marinette didn't look at all bothered, even though Nathalie was clearly in intimidation mode. After a moment, Nathalie nodded, flashed what _might_ have been a small smile, and then stepped into the waiting car. The door closed, and then the car pulled away. "I wonder what she wanted."

Adrien just looked concerned.

After another couple minutes, Nino headed off home and Adrien made a beeline for the bakery. Marinette was inside, helping her parents refill the shelves.

"I saw Nathalie talking to you," Adrien said immediately, rushing to help Marinette. He looked concerned. "What did she want?"

"She remembered that I was the one who returned your father's book," Marinette explained quietly as they sidestepped a customer. "And when I returned it, I had said that _I_ had taken it, instead of Lila. I figured that that would make it more believable." She shrugged. "Nathalie remembered that, and that was what she confronted me about. I just told her the truth- well, I didn't say anything about Tikki telling me to take the book in the first place- and said that I simplified it so your father would be more likely to let you return to school, because if there were too many steps involved then he might think that I was lying to protect you."

"Oh, no _wonder_ she seemed a little taken aback when she realized who you were," Adrien realized. "I told her- well, Plagg told her through me, technically- that you were the one to win the hat contest. I think that put a face to the name, and then-"

"Then she realized that I was the one who "stole" the book from you," Marinette finished. She winced. "And was concerned about it, probably rightly so. I might have gone a _little_ over the top with the fangirl angle to try to be convincing."

"Did she believe you this time?"

Marinette nodded. "Yeah, I think so. It probably didn't make sense to her that you would date the 'superfan' kind of person I had pretended to be the first time around."

"Or that I would be friends with a 'superfan' for so long," Adrien added. Then he grinned and poked Marinette's side. "Though I have to ask- aren't you a fan of mine, Buginette? Be- _claws_ I'm certainly a fan of yours."

"I like you too, kitty-cat," Marinette said fondly, hip-bumping him as she unloaded a tray of bread into an almost empty basket. "And I think I got Nathalie's stamp of approval, too. She seemed to appreciate that I stuck my head out like that for you with the book."

"I appreciate it, too," Adrien said, grinning at her. "And yeah, I think my father probably wouldn't have believed you if you said that Lila took the book and that you followed her until you could get it. He would rather believe that I just lost the book than believe that it changed hands several times."

Adrien and Marinette took over for Sabine then, alternating between working the counter and doing homework with occasional breaks to fetch trays of freshly baked goods from the kitchen in back, while Plagg went upstairs with Tikki to watch Sabine transform and practice.

Or, rather, for _Tikki_ to watch Sabine and offer suggestions. Plagg snacked and took a nap in a lovely sunbeam.

The rest of Thursday passed in a cheerful blur. Plagg got a lovely baked Brie for dinner (apparently the cheese was a gift from Nathalie and it didn't fit in the fridge anyway; Plagg heartily approved of the use), and then Adrien and Marinette finished off their homework and then played video games before Adrien and Plagg had to go back to the mansion.

Adrien didn't sleep very well that night. The tossing and turning kept Plagg up as well, and Plagg _worried_.

If this was what Adrien like two nights before they were scheduled to take down Hawkmoth, how bad was he going to be the night before the final showdown?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaay only one more chapter of the main story to go (though there are three side stories left, I believe).
> 
> As always, reviews make my day! :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter!
> 
> So this is another one of those chapters where stuff happens in the middle but Plagg is transformed and therefore not aware of it. The final battle itself is in the outtakes chapter (ch. 9) which I'm posting at the same time in case you want to read that mid-chapter. I would have tried to do one of those fancy link things so people could just click to go to that bit and then click to come back, but I'm not THAT computer-savvy and I already spent a good chunk of yesterday doing frustrated pterodactyl screeches at my computer while trying to format a thing, so I'm not going to try anything crazy today.
> 
> Enjoy!

Friday seemed to go by too slowly and too fast all at once, even for Plagg. Adrien seemed unsure if he wanted to be in the middle of everything and hanging out with everyone or if he wanted to be alone. He was exhausting himself with the back-and-forth, and then ended sleeping through most of the lunch break, head pillowed in Marinette's lap.

"I'm tempted to tell him to transform and come over here to sleep tonight," Marinette told the kwamis quietly as Adrien slept. "He's going to be exhausted before we even start fighting."

"If he starts tossing around again I'll tell him to come over," Plagg promised. Normally he didn't do _favors_ without being bribed first- it was too much effort- but he knew that a tired Chosen wasn't a Chosen that could fight very well. And then a Chosen who couldn't fight very well was more likely to get injured, and then an injured Chosen was less likely to give Plagg Camembert as often.

Marinette just gave him a small smile in thanks.

Dinner on Friday was a much more somber affair than it had been the previous day. Plagg tried to not let it affect him too much as he munched on a delicious baked cheese bread bowl up on the counter.

Worrying while eating just gave him indigestion, after all.

Adrien was barely eating, just pushing food around on his plate. Sabine and Tom were sending him concerned looks, and Marinette's free hand was resting lightly on his leg. Master Fu seemed rather unconcerned by the tension, and was busy enjoying the potstickers that Sabine had prepared.

Once everyone (except Adrien) had finished their food, they settled onto the couches in the living room to talk about what their plan was for the next day. Plagg didn't bother to listen- after all, he had heard absolutely all of the planning in the early stages, and the middle stages, and the later stages, too, and now he was 100% absolutely planning-ed out.

And yes, that was _totally_ a word. He was a god. He could make up the rules if he wanted to.

"Sabine's Mirage is really convincing now," Tikki commented, coming to float down next to Plagg. A cookie dangled from her paws. "They aren't see-through at all, they don't have that noticeable funny glow unless you're in low light, and they move normally. She gave up on making Ladybug talk, but I think that was a bit of a futile effort in this amount of time."

Plagg nodded and stuffed another bite of cheese-soaked bread into his mouth as the temporary superheroes transformed.

As expected, a Tom Turtle was a formidable sight. The shell shield at its normal, base size was _huge_ , wider than a doorway and taller than it was wide. Amusingly, it was also taller than Fu, and slightly taller than Sabine as well.

Tom seemed less than impressed by his superhero outfit, even as armored as it was. Plagg thought like Tom rather resembled a hulking green boulder and that no one in their right mind would step in his path as long as he kept a stern expression on his face, but Tom seemed more concerned with how _tight_ the outfit was.

"You look fine," Sabine assured Tom as he plucked at the skintight outfit. "Very imposing."

"I suppose it'll be fine for _one_ fight," Tom sighed, finally abandoning his inspection of the suit in favor of taking a closer look at his shield. "This is quite sturdy. I like it. You said that I could make it larger?"

"I don't know if you would _need_ it much larger," Fu commented, looking at the giant shell shield. "But yes, you just will it larger and- oh _my_. That _is_ large."

The shield had expanded, growing to nearly Tom's height and nearly the width of the back of a truck. Tom still held it up easily.

"No one would be able to break through that," Sabine said with a laugh. "Though you might end up not being able to see and end up tripping over a crack in the driveway."

Tom shrunk the shield back to normal size, which was _still_ large. "Yeah, this seems more reasonable. Besides, if it's _too_ big then it can look like I'm trying to hide behind it."

Plagg sniggered. He had remembered a few not-particularly-brave gentle giant Turtles in the past who had done just that. They expanded their shields to comically large proportions and charged blindly, hoping to plow over their enemies like that. It was always amusing to watch, though Plagg's Chosens rarely let him enjoy the scene for long before they transformed to go help their teammate out.

Adrien was clearly more relaxed now, laughing as Tom messed with the shield size. He shrunk it down into a size that Fu could wield, and it looked like a tiny toy in his hands, and then he made it grow into a size that even he struggled to hold.

"I'm pretty sure at least three or four people could sleep in that at that size," Sabine said with a laugh as she inspected the oversize shield. "Wow."

"The shield _does_ fly," Fu added helpfully. "So if you wanted to fly while transporting an injured person or three, a shield that size could be helpful. I've had to do that before."

"Or if someone wanted to take a nap while you travel," Marinette added from her spot on the couch. "Though I suppose it wouldn't be very comfortable."

Adrien grinned at her. "Oh, I don't know. Toss in a couple pillows and some blankets, and it would be great for a cat-nap."

Marinette just groaned at him.

Adrien's phone went off then, and Plagg watched as the smile drained off of Adrien's face as he answered. Before he even said anything, though, Plagg knew that it was Nathalie, calling to summon Adrien home.

"Let me pack some food for you, dear," Sabine said as soon as Adrien hung up. "You barely ate anything at dinner. I think your kwami ate more than you did!"

Adrien only nodded silently and took the bag of bread that she offered him.

Plagg could tell that Adrien's nerves were piling up again as soon as he left the Dupain-Cheng house and slid into the waiting car. He fidgeted the whole way home, could barely hold a conversation with Nathalie, and only _just_ managed to pull himself together long enough to bid his father good-night in a relatively normal-sounding voice.

Plagg wondered briefly how long he should wait before telling Adrien about Marinette's offer, and if Adrien would actually be able to sleep any better next to Marinette or if he would just end up keeping her awake as well.

"I can't believe this is all gonna be over tomorrow," Adrien said after he locked his doors and wandered into the bathroom. Like every night prior, the metal shutters were already down over his windows. Thankfully no one had discovered the broken shutter on the bathroom window that Adrien used to go in and out. He started washing his face. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

...okay, maybe telling Adrien sooner rather than later would be a good idea. It would maybe get his mind off of arresting his own father.

"I'm effectively going to be an _orphan_ ," Adrien continued. He reached for his toothbrush. "I didn't think that was ever going to happen before this year. I mean, I know I'll be safer with Father behind bars, and Paris will be, too, but..."

For a moment, Plagg was tempted to remind Adrien that Fu's theory about his mother being trapped was confirmed by Mr. Agreste's files. It was very possible that they would be able to recover her, _alive_ , and bring her back. But he didn't want to make Adrien get his hopes up, not now. Fu still hadn't found the spell to release those trapped in the temple booby-traps in the scrolls, and it could be a while before he did.

 _If_ it was in those scrolls as all. It was still a pretty big _if_.

"Things are just gonna be really different," Adrien finished with a sigh. "And at least Nathalie has things arranged so that I could stay here in Paris with her and the Gorilla taking care of me, but I just... I don't know. I just want tomorrow to be over."

Plagg stayed quiet for a moment longer, then blurted, "Marinette said you could go over there to sleep if you didn't think that you could sleep here."

Adrien lit up, even as a heavy blush spread over his cheeks. "Really?"

"Uh-huh."

Much to Plagg's surprise, Adrien hesitated. "I don't know if I would be able to sleep any better over there. I would probably just keep Mari awake."

...great, now Adrien was starting up with the cutesy civilian nicknames. In fact, unless Plagg was very much mistaken (and he _sorely_ hoped that he was), he had overheard Adrien call his girlfriend- er, partner and friend- 'Maribug' earlier, because _apparently_ just the cutesy shortening of her name wasn't enough.

"I mean, I love being over there, but..." Adrien was still faltering. "I don't know."

"You slept over there during lunch break," Plagg reminded him. _With your head in her lap,_ Plagg added silently. He could tell already that once Adrien got over his father getting imprisoned and the two superheroes started dating, they would be _disgustingly_ cuddly.

"I mean, _yeah_ , but I was exhausted," Adrien pointed out. He yawned widely. "And I'm tired now, but not tired _enough_ to just fall asleep like I did at lunch."

Plagg waited.

"Though I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try," Adrien mused. "But I shouldn't go over until after I'm sure no one would check in on me. Eleven, maybe? Nathalie normally leaves before then, and Father never checks in on me."

Plagg checked the clock. He and Adrien had an hour to kill.

Adrien spent that time pacing, half of the time with his room lights on and the other half with lights off, to make anyone who came to check think that he was asleep.

Plagg hoped that no one who passed by Adrien's room would listen too closely, because he was _pretty_ certain that people who were sound asleep didn't pace back and forth across their room.

"Okay, it's eleven," Adrien said as soon as he spotted his clock blink the time. "Plagg! Transform me!"

Plagg popped out of the ring only minutes later, only to find Marinette ushering a blanket-wrapped Adrien down into her parents' living room. Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng were nowhere to be seen, and Fu had clearly headed home as well.

"I just don't know how I'll ever fall asleep," Adrien was admitting to Marinette. "And I don't know if being over here will help any or not, but Plagg said that you said I could and I figured that it couldn't hurt."

"I could make you some Valerian tea," Marinette suggested, and Plagg perked up and his whiskers twitched in amusement. " _Maman_ makes it sometimes when one of us is having trouble sleeping and it helps make me tired enough to fall asleep."

Adrien shrugged. "It couldn't hurt, I suppose."

Marinette made the tea, and then the two of them curled up on the sofa to watch some cartoons while Adrien sipped at his tea. Plagg perched on the counter in a prime viewing position.

Adrien finished his cup after a few minutes, and then curled up against Marinette's side as the TV played quietly. A minute later, his head drooped onto her shoulder. Not long after, his eyes fluttered completely closed and his breathing evened out and deepened as he fell completely asleep. It didn't take long for Marinette to notice.

"Is he asleep already?" Marinette asked in a whisper as Adrien curled closer. "I've never seen someone react to that tea so fast! It usually takes me twenty minutes."

Plagg sniggered. "Miraculous tendencies. You just gave Valerian tea to a cat. It's like catnip, but more," he added when Marinette just looked confused. "He'll be out like a light until morning."

Marinette gaped at him. "You didn't warn us!"

"'Course not. This was funnier."

Marinette just sighed and turned the TV off.

The next few minutes were even more amusing. Marinette didn't want to leave Adrien on the couch by himself, and so she had to figure out how to get him up to her room by herself. She trotted upstairs to open her trapdoor and clear a path, and then she returned back to the living room to try to pick up Adrien to carry him upstairs.

She failed miserably.

"He won't even budge!" Marinette complained, straining as she tried to lift Adrien up bridal-style. "He's not this heavy normally!"

Plagg cackled. Tikki, who had been woken up by Marinette's rushing around and had come down to see what was going on, just sighed.

"I fling him around all the time as Ladybug," Marinette continued petulantly, pouting as she flopped down on the couch not occupied by Adrien. "And he barely weighs anything then, it seems."

Plagg waited. Tikki seemed about to say something, and he shushed her. It was _much_ funnier to watch a tired Marinette try to puzzle out a solution on her own. Meanwhile, a thoroughly knocked-out Adrien slumbered on.

"Oh!" Marinette suddenly exclaimed, bolting upright. "I could just transform for a minute and bring him upstairs!"

...bugger, Plagg had been hoping that it would take her a little longer to puzzle out the answer.

Moments later, Marinette had transformed and had scooped Adrien up easily. She trotted upstairs with him, and Plagg watched as she deposited him in her bed. Before she headed back downstairs, she set an alarm on her phone.

"He has to be back to the mansion before anyone checks in on him in the morning," Marinette explained to Plagg, setting the phone next to her pillow. She took a moment to reach over and brush Adrien's bangs off of his face. "At least he'll be able to sleep in on Sunday."

Plagg settled down on a pile of fabric scraps next to Tikki and yawned loudly. Tomorrow was going to be a big day for his Chosen, and he had to be rested up.

 

* * *

 

Plagg whined loudly as an alarm pierced the air. He rolled over and peered down at the bed, where Adrien and Marinette were curled up next to each other. They both had curiously similar responses to the alarm- Marinette curled up and groaned, and Adrien was trying to pull the blankets over his head. Marinette's arm snaked out and tried to whack the alarm off, just as Adrien reached over as well. He frowned in confusion when his arm had to go around another body, and his eyes finally cracked open.

"Wha- _Marinette?_ "

"Morning, Adrien," Marinette managed around a yawn. She pushed herself up and finally got the alarm shut off. "Wakey wakey."

"I fell asleep?"

Marinette shot an annoyed look at Plagg, who promptly feigned sleep. "Yeah. _Someone_ forgot to tell us that you're more sensitive to Valerian because of your Miraculous. It only took you a couple minutes to fall asleep."

"Still tired," Adrien grumbled, but he pushed himself up. "Maybe less tea next time."

"You can nap at home, kid," Plagg said, giving up on the façade of sleep after a few seconds of consideration. "Ready?"

Adrien just grumbled.

 

* * *

 

Adrien was driven over to the Dupain-Cheng house mid-morning, after he had finally shaken off the last lingering effects of the Valerian. Nathalie had given him a _look_ as he left and had briefly suggested that he invite his "girlfriend" over for once instead of always going to her house, making Adrien turn bright red, but otherwise she didn't try to stop him.

Once they arrived at the bakery, they were surprised to find it open. Adrien headed in to find Sabine at the counter, explaining something to a young woman behind the counter. She lit up when she spotted Adrien.

"Am I early?" Adrien asked nervously.

"Oh no, dear," Sabine assured him. "Sarah is just working the counter today, so I was making sure she knew what she was doing. Marinette and Master Fu are upstairs, and Tom will be up soon. Go on ahead, I'll be right behind you."

Adrien headed up.

"Hopefully this will be over soon so Tom and Sabine can get back to the bakery," Adrien said as he mounted the last few stairs. He was still frowning slightly. "I wasn't expecting them to be working today."

Plagg rolled his eyes. He _seriously_ doubted that Tom and Sabine actually planned on doing any real work today. They needed to have the bakery open, sure, because otherwise it would look weird, but they seemed to have brought in extra help so they could be free for the morning- or more likely, for the day. Surely they knew that Adrien would be upset after his father's arrest and would want to be able to spend the time with him.

"Adrien!" Marinette exclaimed, popping out of the door. "Come in! My parents should be up soon, they just need to make sure that the staff can keep things running for the day without as much supervision as they're used to."

Plagg was almost knocked out of the air by the sheer amount of relief suddenly flooding out from Adrien.

"Greetings, Chat Noir," Fu called from inside the room. "Right on time."

Adrien just managed a weak smile.

"Do you want anything to eat?" Marinette asked as she pulled Adrien and Plagg inside. "Or something to drink? We have cheese for later," she added to Plagg.

"And some for now?" Plagg asked hopefully. Marinette sighed.

"Maybe just a little."

"I think I'll be sick if I eat anything," Adrien admitted. He perched on a stool next to the counter. "I just want to be done."

Marinette set a couple slices of cheese down on the counter for Plagg and headed around the counter to wrap Adrien up in a hug. Plagg perched on his shoulder and attempted a comforting purr around the cheese he had stuffed in his mouth.

"All right, we're ready," Sabine announced, pushing through the door with Tom following behind. Trixx darted around Sabine, clearly eager to get going. "We'll have to check in with Sarah and Jean periodically throughout the day to make sure they stay on track, but otherwise we're free."

Fu smiled, pushing himself off of the couch. He seemed far more relaxed than anyone else in the room. "Fabulous. Now Tom, I'll-"

He was cut off by a shrill sound as several phones around the room rang with an akuma alarm, and they all froze. Plagg bared his teeth and narrowly kept himself from destroying the phones to silence the alarms because _really?_ An akuma attack _now?_ Adrien was only just holding it together this morning, and now they would have an akuma to deal with before they could just get over what was bound to be the worst part of the day for Adrien.

" _Great_ ," Marinette complained. "Just when we were ready to go, too!"

"At least Mr. Agreste should be in the office for the rest of the day once you defeat the akuma," Fu pointed out. "We didn't consider what we might do if he were up in his lair before. Why don't the two of you go take care of that akuma, and we'll wait here. I brought some scrolls along that I can translate in the meantime."

All Adrien and Marinette could do was nod and call for their kwamis to transform.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Plagg popped out of the ring, hungry, tired, and drained, he knew that it hadn't been an easy fight. It was clearly no longer morning, and both Adrien and Marinette looked exhausted as they slouched at the Dupain-Cheng kitchen table.

"What a way to go out," Marinette commented as her mother slid a bowl of soup in front of them. "Final akuma fight, hopefully. At least Mr. Agreste _really_ won't be expecting us to be out and about again today."

Adrien blinked at her. "We're still doing that today? I mean, I hoped, but then the fight took so long..."

"We don't have much of a choice," Tom told him. "Sabine and I brought in extra help just for today, and it might be difficult to do it again. Sarah and Jean normally work Monday through Wednesday, and while they were willing to do Saturday this week with our normal weekend workers I doubt they would be thrilled to do it two weeks in a row."

Adrien nodded.

While the two tired superheroes ate, Sabine fetched two petits fours for Tikki and a large hunk of Camembert for Plagg so they could recharge as well. By the time Adrien finally swallowed his last bite of broth-soaked bread, everyone was rested up a bit.

"I can go check to see if Mr. Agreste is back in his office yet," Sabine offered, calling up her transformation. "Or if he's still up sulking in his _lair_."

Fu nodded in approval. "Yes, that would be a good idea. And once you get into position out of sight of Mr. Agreste's office, you can send us a quick message to let us know if he's down or not."

Adrien started to look ill again as Sabine headed out across the rooftops.

(Plagg was _really_ glad that it would be the illusions and not Ladybug and Chat Noir themselves meeting Mr. Agreste face-to-face at the door, because Mr. Agreste would pick up that something was wrong right away and target Chat Noir. Hopefully the man wouldn't even get a good look at Chat Noir's face during the scramble.)

"Are you going to be okay, Adrien?" Tom asked. He stepped forward to rest a hand on Adrien's shoulder. "We'll be right there with you, every step of the way."

"And no matter what, you're never going to be without a family," Marinette said firmly, sliding her hand up to cup Adrien's jaw. "We're here for you, kitty. Always."

Adrien nodded, eyes closed as he pressed his forehead to hers. Plagg watched as he took deep breaths, working to focus. After a moment, he flew up to perch on Adrien's shoulder and let out a small, comforting purr.

Barely a minute later, a small orange blob shot through the window and into the room. It swirled around, then announced, "Mr. Agreste is in his office. Call the police and come on over."

"Time to go," Tom announced. He fiddled with the bracelet wrapped around his wrist, then transformed. He smiled at the teens. "Ready?"

Marinette glanced at Adrien. He took one last deep breath, then stepped back and nodded.

"Let's go."

 

* * *

/

* * *

 

As soon as he popped out of the ring, Plagg turned to Adrien, frantically scanning for injuries. Adrien hadn't been transformed for long at all, which meant that either the fight hadn't gone for very long, Adrien had decided to back out last minute, or he had gotten injured and had to retreat.

Sometimes Plagg _really_ hated not knowing what was going on when he was transformed.

Adrien's expression didn't tell him much. He looked tired, like he would like nothing better than a nap and a plate full of cookies. He didn't look like he was in pain, though, so that eliminated the possibility of him being injured. Marinette came up next to him, wrapping him in a hug and resting her cheek against his shoulder. The Butterfly Miraculous dangled from her fingers.

The fight was over.

"It went about as well as we could have hoped," Marinette told Tikki and Plagg quietly as Adrien buried his face in her hair. "He didn't spot Adrien or I hidden up above before he went to the door. Nathalie did, but she didn't say anything. Mr. Agreste _did_ try to use his missiles, but they just kind of smoked and fizzled out. We had a bit of an incident with magic backlash after tearing off his Miraculous mid-transformation, but everything worked out in the end."

"I dug in too deep when I was shredding the necktie," Adrien mumbled, his words muffled by Marinette's hair. "I didn't cause any _serious_ injury, I guess, but there _was_ blood. I hurt him."

"He was wriggling around quite a bit," Marinette reminded Adrien quickly before either Plagg or Tikki could say anything. "If he hadn't, maybe he wouldn't have gotten hurt. And neck wounds always look worse than they actually are, I think. Mr. Raincomprix said that he thought that it would be fine, but someone more trained in medical stuff would take a look at it once they got back to the police station."

Adrien just nodded.

"And speaking of Mr. Raincomprix, we told him that Adrien was at a friend's house right now," Tom added. "I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up here shortly to, ah, 'break the news' about your father. He would want to do that before the media picks up the news at all."

Adrien made a face.

"Could you- I mean, if one of you is downstairs, could you tell Mr. Raincomprix that Ladybug and Chat Noir already came by to do that?" Marinette asked. She cast a worried look at Adrien, who didn't look like he was going to be able to act as though he hadn't yet heard about his father's arrest yet. "I'm sure he'll still want to come up and talk, but it might just be easier on us to _not_ have to pretend like it's new news."

Tom and Sabine nodded immediately.

"I'll go down," Tom said before Sabine could offer. "I need to check in with how Jean is doing with the final batch of the day, anyway." He rested a gentle hand on Adrien's shoulder. "Do you guys want anything? Cookies? Muffins? Cheesecake? Some croissants?"

Plagg perked up. "Cheesecake?"

Adrien just shook his head. Plagg hastily suppressed the urge to ask if he could have Adrien's share, too. Something told him that this maybe wasn't the time.

Tom nodded, and with one more look at Adrien, he vanished downstairs.

It didn't take long for Officer Raincomprix to show up. He looked supremely uncomfortable as he caught sight of Adrien curled up next to Marinette on the couch, but Plagg could sense some underlying relief there. Clearly the man had been dreading breaking the news to Adrien that his father was a supervillain and had been arrested, and with that taken care of by the superheroes his job was that much easier.

"Adrien," the officer greeted him awkwardly. Plagg briefly wondered if they _really_ didn't have anyone on the force better suited for this kind of thing. It seemed from what Plagg had seen that the man was stiff and not particularly good with kids, which was a bit odd considering that he had a kid of his own. "I, uh- Tom- er, Mr. Dupain- said you had already heard about your father?"

Adrien nodded.

"He's in police custody right now," Raincomprix continued, shifting back and forth. Plagg noticed that his eyes weren't _quite_ resting on Adrien. In fact, the officer was looking almost anywhere but at Adrien. "He had some injuries in the final fight, but they were superficial and got cleaned up as soon as we got back to the station. There won't be any lasting damage from those."

Adrien's shoulders slumped in relief.

"We still have to look and see if there's a plan on file for who will take care of you now." Raincomprix _seriously_ looked like he was about to bolt, and Plagg idly started wondering how long it would take. "But, um..."

"Adrien can stay with us for as long as needed," Sabine said firmly. She stepped over and laid a hand gently on Adrien's shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. "We'd be happy to have him here."

Raincomprix looked further relieved.

"Okay. That- that's good. Uh, we'll keep you updated, then," Raincomprix said. His eyes darted towards the door, and Plagg bet that he was about to leave. "And we haven't released a press statement of any sort yet because we want to gather as much information as we can first, but we _were_ parked in front of the mansion for a bit and of course the superheroes were there so there will probably be some media attention."

Adrien cringed.

"It'll all be conjecture for a few days, but I wouldn't be surprised if people put it together," Raincomprix added. "So we're planning on having some police presence at the school on Monday to keep reporters from harassing you. And, uh, that's everything, unless you had questions?"

Adrien just shook his head.

Officer Raincomprix nodded, bade a _very_ quick goodbye, and then was gone before they could blink.

"Just a tad uncomfortable, wasn't he?" Plagg sniggered as soon as the door closed behind the officer. "If he had actually had to 'break the news', he probably would have fidgeted a hole in the floor."

That got a smile out of Adrien, as he had known it would. It vanished a second later.

"Well, I'm sure this kind of thing isn't exactly a fun part of their job," Sabine said. She patted Adrien's shoulder lightly, then moved over to the counter. "We'll keep an eye on the news reports flying around for sure, so we can warn you about what people are saying. And if anyone tries bothering you, we'll either have Tom accompany you or we can ask for police escort until the fuss dies down."

"It's not going to take people long to figure out that Father was Hawkmoth," Adrien said, sighing as he sat up on the couch. "I saw people pointing at us when we left, and at the police cars. And if it doesn't click right away, it will when there aren't any more akuma attacks, and it's gonna be _big_ news. I don't think it'll die down fast at all."

Plagg suspected that Adrien was probably right. Hawkmoth had been the biggest news in the city for a while, and his _defeat_ would be big news as well, even without a spectacular battle to go along with it.

"The best I can hope for is people not bothering me _too_ much," Adrien continued with a sigh. "And people at school not blaming me for Father's actions, too. So many of them got akumatized. I just don't know how they'll react."

"I'll bite them if they blame you," Plagg announced. "Even if they taste bad."

That got another small smile out of Adrien.

There was another knock at the door, and they all turned in time to see Fu stepping in the door. The Turtle Miraculous hung from his wrist again, and there was a small smile on his face. There was a sense of excitement coming from him as he beamed at Adrien and Marinette.

"Good job, you two. From what I could see, that was a near-perfect attack. It went fairly smoothly, and now Mr. Agreste is safely in police custody." His gaze slid to Adrien. "But this is _not_ over. We still have to find your mother and return her to you."

Adrien's eyes snapped to Fu, suddenly focused. The old man smiled.

"I found something quite promising in the scrolls today. A spell, to free prisoners caught in the Tibetan temple traps."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D :D :D
> 
>  
> 
> Coming (hopefully) Fall 2018: PatBC sequel, tentatively titled It Was Only Meant To Be A One-Shot.
> 
> (I kid about the title. But there WILL be a sequel. I already have four chapters largely written. The kids are going on an adveeeenture.)


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